Cigarette Smuggling Funds Hezbollah

CBS News just ran a story that let slip the long-held secret suppressed by MSM....that Hezbollah's main source of funding is the smuggling of cigarettes by their American operatives into high-tax states. The Washington Post gave a more detailed account of this in a 2004 article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23384-2004Jun7.html This is a huge story, but it's consistently swept under the rug because it's politically incorrect to question the sainthood of our homegrown mullahs in the anti-tobacco jihad.

Year after year, state after state, regressive "sin taxes" are foisted on smokers even though our elected officials know the black market conditions that originate from pricing tobacco far above its market value ultimately fund "people trying to kill us". But the states are addicted to the short-term revenues they cash in on from the dwindling number of tobacco consumers willing to pay their oppressive taxes, and Big Anti-Tobacco's soldiers applaud ANY measure that they see as beneficial to the holy war they're waging against smokers, consequences be damned. It's an appalling quid pro quo, and would be appalling even if its endgame was merely sacrificing personal freedom on the altar of a health and wellness police state. The fact that it's financing the very people we're engaged in this epic struggle of civilizations with makes it even more diabolical.

I realize the tyrannical true believers in the "protect you from yourself" anti-smoking industry will be undeterred, willing to accept whatever level of global carnage as is necessary to reduce tobacco consumption and make them feel better about themselves. But I suspect the majority of rational Americans on both sides of the aisle would be willing to let go of their support for the growing epidemic of regressive excise taxes if they were properly educated of the consequences. I salute CBS News for at least raising the topic in light of the current mess in the Middle East, but I'm not confident that the association between outrageous "sin taxes" and terrorist smuggling operations will be outlined to the point that it could bring about a change of policy. Again, offending smug anti-smoking authoritarians at home would be a much more devastating consequence to the world than allowing the bounty of the tobacco black market to finance bloodthirsty terrorists' operations of mass murder!