Here I pointed out how the international trade in illegal drugs was being conducted in the Balkans and how much of that trade seems to originate in Muslim Albania and Muslim Turkey. We have all seen the increasing involvement of certain Islamist elements with some unsavoury characters in Latin America and some of us may even have speculated about just how deep that involvement might go. Does it reach as far down as the so-called drug cartels?

Over at allAfrica.com there is this interesting article.

The international community must encourage reform tendencies in Guinea-Bissau to counter the risk of the West African country becoming a narco-state and political no-man’s-land of interest to Maghreb criminal and terrorist networks.

[...]

The creation of a democratic state is increasingly urgent as the risk of criminalisation is growing”, says Daniela Kroslak, Crisis Group’s Deputy Africa Program Director. “Cocaine trafficking from Latin America has increased tremendously in recent years, and the country has become a pivotal transit point in the route to European markets”.

[...]

“Only a serious institution-building process and a legal framework that can regulate political life and free it from the guerrilla mentality of pre-independence can allow Guinea-Bissau to escape its crisis once and for all”, says François Grignon, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director.

You’ll note the use of the word ‘Maghreb’ in the first extract. This is, presumably, to avoid saying ‘Muslim’ criminals in much the same way that much of the Western press uses another and different weasel word – ‘Asian’.

You’ll also note the use of ‘narco-state’. That is very much what Guinea-Bissau almost is – the first state in the world to be run for the exclusive benefit of criminal gangs of drug traffickers by those self-same gangs.

Our Islamist enemies may not be directly involved with the drug cartels in certain infamous South American countries, but their involvement certainly starts in Guinea-Bissau and it seems that it’s aimed squarely at undermining the free democracies of Europe.

If we insist on indulging in some very risky pleasures then we must be aware that by so doing we are more than probably funding efforts aimed at our own destruction.

This is no longer about whether or not a particular illegal substance of choice is harmful or not, it’s about us accidentally funding our own destruction by refusing to curtail our own individual hedonistic impulses for the greater long-term good.

You can find allAfrica.com here.

You can find Guinea-Bissau using this map.