The Fort Bragg Cartel—Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

 

By Seth Harp, 2025 

Viking—Penguin Random House 

Reviewed by Steve Halpern

Recently the United States destroyed several boats in the Caribbean Sea and caused the deaths of over 200 people who were on board. President Donald Trump argued that the United States is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels. We might also consider that the Drug Enforcement Administration is funded to the tune of about $3.25 billion. As I’m writing this review, Secretary of War Peter Hegseth is planning to conduct military operations in several Latin American nations. The pretense for this military action is to battle against “designated terrorist organizations.” 

In Seth Harp’s best-selling book, The Fort Bragg Cartel—Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, he makes the following statement that questions the motives of the government in their supposed effort to battle drug trafficking. 

“Throughout its history, the CIA has worked to achieve American national security objectives in partnership with known drug traffickers, including the anti-communist Kuomintang, the founders of modern-day Taiwan; Frances’s Corsican mafia syndicates; Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro; Hmong irregulars in Laos as well as the Royal Lao Army; and the contra rebels in Nicaragua. But American foreign policy elites’ complicity in the international drug trade was never so substantial, sustained, witting, and consequential as in Afghanistan.”

To begin to see how military officers became involved in drug trafficking we need to look at the elite Delta Force. These are the soldiers who go through the most rigorous training. Military commanders are very particular about who is chosen.

President Jimmy Carter gave the orders for the Delta Force to attempt a rescue of U.S. personnel who had been held in Iran. The Iranians had just carried out a revolution where they deposed the hated dictator the Shah Riza Pahlavi. Carter gave refuge to Pahlavi, and this sparked the Iranian people to detain members of the United States embassy. 

Carter ordered Delta Force officers to attempt a rescue of U.S. personnel who had been detained. That effort failed.

When President Regan came into office, he modernized the Delta Force into the Fort Bragg based Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). JSOC officers also supported the contras who opposed the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The contras were known to partially fund their efforts by drug trafficking.

Seth Harp’s book reads like a novel, but the story he reported on was corroborated by facts uncovered by his research. Harp served in the United States Army Reserve and did a tour of duty in Iraq. So, rather than give a full outline of his book, I will look at three of the characters who, directly or indirectly, contributed to drug trafficking in Fort Bragg and the surrounding area of North Carolina.

General Stanley McChrystal

General Stanley McChrystal headed up the JSOC forces under the Administration of President Obama. He quadrupled the number of Delta Force combatants in Afghanistan. 

During his time directing forces in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai was the effective ruler of the country. Seth Harp reported that “Karzai’s government was primarily a military-industrial money-laundering machine for transatlantic security elites, a corrupt conduit through which a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer dollars flowed, but secondarily and almost as important, it was a massive drug cartel that produced nearly all of the world’s illicit opiates.”

General McChrystal acknowledged that “Too often,” American proxies were “corrupt and despised warlords whom we paid handsomely.”

McCrystal organized teams of Delta Force soldiers, Navy Seals, and Army Rangers to carry out night raids where these forces murdered up to 100 Afghans and leveled entire villages.

In 2015 The New York Times did an expose titled, SEAL Team 6: A secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines. This article reported that the Seal team had been assassinating a dozen or more people every night for years on end.

However, the lead organization in those raids was Delta Force. Billy Lavigne was one of the Delta Force officers who did several tours of duty in Afghanistan under the command of General McChrystal. Lavigne is one of the central true-life characters in Seth Harp’s book.   

Freddie Wayne Huff

Freddie Wayne Huff was a police officer first recruited in Lexington, North Carolina. He was effective in stopping motorists and confiscating large amounts of cash. Because of Huff’s $9 million in confiscations the police department in his district was able to modernize.

Then Huff had a discussion with Karl Culberson, a drug enforcement officer who also had experience working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This is the advice Culberson gave to Huff regarding his drug enforcement work.

“What you think you’re doing is noble.” “But they want it here. You’re a pawn. Everything you’re doing is in vain.”

Then Huff pulled over an inebriated insurance executive who had been a donor to the Governor. The executive warned Huff that he would have his job for writing the ticket. Within a month Huff was fired from the police department.

Needing to support a family, Huff got a job shipping appliances needing repair to Mexico. He learned that the owner of the company he worked with was also connected to the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.

Because of his experience of apprehending motorists, Huff was effective evading searches by the police. This is how police officer Freddie Wayne Huff became the largest drug dealer in North Carolina.

Huff maintained a close friendship with Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas who was stationed at Fort Bragg. Dumas came under a cloud of suspicion for misappropriation of government funds, as well as using and selling illegal drugs. He resigned from the service and formed a partnership with Huff to expand drug dealing to Fort Bragg.

Huff also worked with Billy Lavigne who was a Delta Force officer. Lavigne also sold drugs at Fort Bragg and did several tours of duty in Afghanistan. Lavigne and Timothy Dumas were murdered and became two of 109 military officers who lost their lives at Fort Bragg in a two year period.

Gene Paul Thacker

Gene Paul Thacker was a first-generation Special Forces officer who served in Korea and Vietnam. After his time in the military Thacker purchased a municipal airport in the vicinity of Fort Bragg. Green Berets have used his airfield in their parachuting practices. 

Declassified FBI files and court records reported that Thacker maintained a small fleet of turboprop planes to smuggle huge amounts of cocaine into the North Carolina. Although Gene Thacker was never convicted of a crime, his son, took over the business. Tim Thacker would eventually plead guilty to drug trafficking and firearms charges. 

These drug traffickers who were former police or military officers were able to get away with their illegal activities for many years. Harp documented how the police as well as military commanders refused to prosecute officers for crimes such as possession or trafficking of illegal drugs, rape, and murder. 

There was a documentary film titled Invisible War that reported on many rapes in the military were there was no effort to prosecute the perpetrators. The producers of this film estimated that there are thousands of rapes in the military every year.

The U.S. military eventually left Afghanistan. The Taliban that had been in power before the U.S. occupation returned to power. Clearly the Taliban is a repressive regime. However, Seth Harp reported that the evidence shows that the Taliban eliminated the drug business from Afghanistan. Because that source of heroin was eliminated, a new market in fentanyl erupted. 

The information about U.S. government complicity with the international drug trade isn’t new. There was Alfred W. McCoy’s book The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade published in 1972, 1991 and 2003. There was the film American Gangster starring Denzel Washington. Yet President Trump claims that the government is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Seth Harp’s book gives us more evidence that exposes the blatant dishonesty of routine government policy.

Alfonso Fanjul and the Cuban Revolution

 

By Steve Halpern

Today I read the obituary of Alfonso Fanjul Jr. in the New York Times. Mr. Fanjul and his family made a fortune because workers toiled in unimaginably horrendous conditions to produce sugar in Cuba. Clearly this wasn’t how the New York Times reported his business dealings. So, perhaps a bit of background to the political-economic system of capitalism would be useful.

Adam Smith and David Ricardo both gave the definitive versions of how capitalism works. They called this the “labor theory of value.” In other words, labor is the essential ingredient in producing all wealth. 

Sugar cane workers routinely toiled under the scorching sun to cut the sugar cane that gives the world sugar. However, in Cuba, before the revolution, these workers only had work for three months during the year. There was no unemployment insurance for the rest of the year. These workers had little or no access to education or health care.

To maintain that inhuman system, there were the rural guards who did literally whatever they wanted. Resistance to the rural guards was punished by torture or death. Clearly these stories weren’t reported in the press. 

Maintaining these conditions was how the Fanjul family grew their fortune to encompass 90,000 acres, mansions, as well as expensive art collections. 

Then came the Cuban Revolution. Alfonso Fanjul learned about the Cuban Revolution at a New Years Eve party he was celebrating at the Havana Yacht Club.

Then he described a meeting between the Fanjul family and representatives of the new Cuban Revolutionary government. Clearly, this new government had more in common with the sugar cane workers than the Fanjul family and their friends at the Havana Yacht Club. So, the new government representatives started the meeting by placing machine guns on the table.

Because the Cuban government supported the interests of workers and farmers, the people began to have rights they never had before. After the revolution there was a literacy campaign where nearly everyone on the island learned how to read. Health care and education became lifetime rights for all Cubans. This was made possible because the Cuban government prioritized workers and farmers before the interests of who profited from their labor.

The Fanjuls then moved their business to South Florida and profited from Jamaican workers who cut the sugar cane. They gave generously to candidates in both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Those contributions were rewarded with tariffs that made the cost of sugar three times higher in the United States than it would have been without those tariffs. Consumers paid billions of dollars in inflated prices to further enrich the Fanjul family.

Alfonso Fanjul also gave $2.5 million to the political campaigns of Donald Trump. The Fanjuls also had holdings in Central Romana Corp. that invested in the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic. 

The Biden Administration had a ban on sugar imports from the D.R. because of allegations of forced labor. The Trump Administration lifted that ban, giving the Fanjul family the opportunity to make more money. However, among the attendees at Alfonso Fanjul’s funeral were former President Bill Clinton, as well as former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Apparently, when it comes to enriching billionaires, the democrats and republicans have little to argue about.   

Yes, there is a clear disparity between the politics of Alfonso Fanjul Jr. and the politics of the Cuban government. The New York Times estimates the wealth of the Fanjul family at $4 billion. Although Cuba is a poor country, Cuban doctors have been treating some of the least affluent patients all over the world. Students from numerous countries learned to be doctors because they were trained in Cuba free of charge.

I believe that health care and education in Cuba are more important priorities than the drive to enrich the former members of the Havana Yacht Club. Clearly the United States government doesn't agree with this opinion. That is why they have been working to overthrow that government since 1959. When we look at the current drive to starve the Cuban people with an oil embargo, we might consider the times when the Fanjul family lived in opulence while the Cuban people struggled to survive.

The Sheer Insanity of Capitalism

 

By Steve Halpern

Today there is a growing disconnect between political office holders and the majority of the population. The idea that politicians support the interests of working people is growing very thin. So, I would like to look at the seeming insanity of what the normal functioning of the capitalist system looks like.

The insanity

First, employers hire workers for one reason. That is to gouge out profits. Although the government doesn't directly generate profits, history has shown that government officials have consistently supported capitalist interests. The so-called "non-profit" organizations rely on funding from profitable corporations. So, in one way or another, we all work to enrich some of the most affluent people in the world. 

In order to understand the totality of capitalism, we need to look at a few facts. Yes, employers are in business to generate profits. However, employers generally have expenses that add no value to the goods and services we want and need. These include: interest payments to banks, insurance premiums, advertising, corporate law firms, landlords, and the so-called "war or defense department."

Thinking about this reality, we might make a basic conclusion. Working our entire lives so employers might profit, should be enough to provide for our basic needs. Well, that's not the case. 

In addition to generating profits for employers, we need to pay taxes. Since the government works to support employers, we need to ask the question: In reality are we paying taxes, or are taxes, in effect, unpaid wages? 

Is this a "democracy"?

The the so-called "news media" argues that government officials are elected, and therefore the actions of the government are ultimately the result of a "democratic" process. 

However, there are many political parties that run in the elections. There were about 15 parties that were on the ballot in several states in the Presidential elections. However, the news media consistently ignored the campaigns of all these parties except for the Democrats and Republicans. These happen to be the parties that have consistently supported capitalist interests. 

One of the priorities of these candidates is to fund the police and the Defense or War Departments. They argue that we need to fund these agencies so we can be safe. 

So, there are the local, state, and federal police forces. Then, there is the National Security Agency that keeps an eye on everyone here. There is the Central Intelligence Agency that keeps an eye on nations around the world. The military in this country has been used for aggressive military actions all over the world.    

But all these investments are inadequate to keep us safe. We need to pay astronomical amounts of money to insurance companies, just in case something might happen. Before we pay out this money, we all know that insurance agents will never directly give us health care, or repair our automobiles, or rebuild a damaged home. No, insurance companies are in business to profit from the uncertainty that is a constant feature of the capitalist system. 

So, since this system makes no sense, why do people put up with it? In answering this question, first it is useful to look at nations where people overthrew governments with political revolutions. There were revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. In these nations, masses of people began to realize that the political system they lived under was no longer tolerable. That sentiment, combined with a competent leadership allowed those revolutions to erupt.

The irrational justifications of capitalism

The capitalist system needs to continually grow. We see this every day in the increasing stock market prices. Banks only invest money because they can get a larger return on their investments. 

This need for capitalism to grow partially explains why there have been significant improvements in the standard of living. The other reason has to do with the labor, civil rights, and women's movements demanding improved living standards, as well as equality. 

Workers understand the profound injustice of working so someone else can profit. However, when the standard of living was improving, many workers tolerated this obvious injustice.

For the past fifty years, the standard of living has been deteriorating for the majority of the population. Millions of manufacturing jobs were automated or left the country. Prices for health care and education have skyrocketed. Yet the stock market is at an all time high.

Some people were attracted to Donald Trump when he argued that he wanted to, "drain the swamp." However, after he became President, his basic policies were in fundamental agreement with the mainstream of the democratic party. He adamantly supports Israeli organized genocide. He aggressively works to deport people who were born in other countries. 

Clearly, Trump's tactics are more aggressive than the democrats. However, Trump and the democrats are both in favor of the economy that enriches billionaires while subjecting millions of people to struggle in abject poverty.  

While Trump and the democrats are agreed with maintaining the gross inequality here, they work to glorify this country and its history. Trump has gone to the extent of posting signs at museum entrances warning visitors of "inaccurate information." Then, there is James Loewen's 1995 book titled, "Lies My Teacher Told Me."

In 2008, the stock market crashed. The investment companies Bear Sterns and Lehmann Brothers went out of business. This crash didn't happen because of mistakes or insensitivity. That crash, like the one in 1929, were inevitable because the contradictions of the capitalist system cause the system to explode.

We are the working class of the world

One of the ways capitalists maintain their power is to create divisions in the working class. They create divisions between Black and white workers, women and men, citizens and immigrants etc... 

Capitalists also want us to identify with the United States. However, the owners of corporations profit from workers all over the world.

The facts are that our interests are in common with workers in other countries. We all need a place to live, food to eat, health care, and transportation. Yet capitalists profit off of all those goods and services. 

This means that we have a real interest in identifying as workers of the world, and not as citizens of one or another country. Looking at politics from this perspective, working people have a real interest in fighting against all racist and sexist discriminatory practices. Immigrants aren't a problem, but our sister and brother workers. An injury to one is an injury to all.

The working class of the world is a sleeping giant. Since we produce all the goods and services, we have real potential power. As capitalism continues to deteriorate, we can use that power to end the sheer insanity we live with every day.