Saddam not in cahoots with al-Qaeda? Impossible! Saddam is evil!
North Korea not dealing drugs? Impossible! North Korea's evil!
All evildoers are guilty of all possible forms of evil!
And we in the Bush administration don't care what the facts are!
...In its annual report on worldwide narcotics trafficking, released March 2, the State Department concluded for the first time that it is "highly likely, but not certain, that Pyongyang is trading narcotic drugs as state policy." It is the first time the U.S. has leveled that accusation.
... the primary basis for the charge was last April's seizure by Australian authorities of 275 pounds of heroin connected to a North Korean freighter. The ship, called the Pong Su, was captured off the southeastern coast of Australia...
But a federal magistrate in the Australian state of Victoria on Friday dismissed drug charges against 27 of the ship's 30 North Korean crew members, including a "political secretary" whose presence aboard the ship was highlighted by the State Department in its case against the Pyongyang regime....
In addition to Friday's ruling by Magistrate Duncan Reynolds, a lead investigator from the Australian Federal Police testified that a Southeast Asian organized crime figure--not the North Korean government--arranged the shipment, according to court transcripts. Other evidence, records show, also suggests the heroin was produced in the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia, not in North Korea....
...Damien Appleby, a lead investigator for the Australian Federal Police, ... testified that a Macao-based drug boss made all of the arrangements to charter the ship from Malaysia. Phone traffic reconstructed by Australian Federal Police investigators also showed that the organized crime figure was constantly on the move in Southeast Asia while the ship was en route.
"My own view on it," Appleby testified, is that "it's just organized crime."
Asked by Peter Faris, an attorney representing the crew, specifically about Pyongyang's involvement, Appleby said, "I've got no evidence of any government involvement in it."
And Appleby suggested that any people in the Pong Su Shipping Co. who might have stood to gain from the illicit shipment most likely were profiting on their own. "If they gave it to the North Korean government it would surprise me, but anything is possible," he said.
...Ranier Ellinghaus, another lawyer for the crew, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. last week that continued U.S. allegations linking the heroin to Pyongyang are extraordinary given the evidence presented in court.
"I cannot see how it can be alleged, even by the wildest stretch of the imagination, that the North Korean government was in any way involved," he told the network.
--Chicago Tribune/Yahoo News