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Escobar invested his money in land and buildings, and construction in Medellfn quadrupled in the 1980Æs, thanks to the cartel drug mafiaÆs money, and Escobar soon had an 8,000-acre ranch equipped with five swimming pools, manmade lakes, and a jet aircraft runway (1). EscobarÆs cartel affected the U.S. in much the same way that organized crime usually does. It infected society with crimes beyond drug trafficking, such as money-laundering, and it reduced the level of privacy of the average citizen, as the government needed access to private information for the purpose of convicting criminals (2). Furthermore, The flow of illegal narcotics from Latin America is a serious national security issue for the United States. This may be a surprising statement for those accustomed to thinking of national security as defense, weapons, alliances, and the military, but, as noted national security analysts Amos A. Jordan and William J. Taylor, Jr., explain, national security now includes "protection . . . of vital economic and political interests, the loss of which could threaten fundamental values and the vitality of the state(3). A hidden impact is that of the drug trade inside the U.S.; ôthe domestic drug trade has a destabilizing effect on the U.S. as wellö (3). This explains why President Reagan signed a National Security directive in 1986, designating |
