D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War

The D.E.A is extending it's reach of the drug war and now have five commando style squads. The D.E.A over the past several years have been battling nations such as Haiti, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize. The fight against the drug cartels have been expanding with trained D.E.A officials working with these countries respected police forces. The program the D.E.A is using is called FAST, which stands for Foreign-Deployed Advisory Support Team. It was created by George W. Bush administration. The idea of FAST program was to find and track down the Taliban cartels in Afghanistan. Since Obama has been in office they have continued you use the program and the FAST has even expanded away from the middle-east and into South America and the Caribbean islands. "The evolution of the program into a global enforcement arm reflects the United States’ growing reach in combating drug cartels and how policy makers increasingly are blurring the line between law enforcement and military activities, fusing elements of the “war on drugs” with the “war on terrorism" (Savage). FAST program has had serious impact in Haiti over the past year where D.E.A officials are training 100 Haitian counternarcotics officers. The Haiti police officials claims that we need the help because they don't have enough trained people to fight the cartels.

By; Joe Ruffolo
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/americas/united-states-drug-enforcement-agency-squads-extend-reach-of-drug-war.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world