Not outdated at all. The Afghanistan heroin trade. The cocaine trade today in latin america. The CIA is deep into that, and has been. The fact they launched the war against the cartels in Mexico a couple of decades back probably indicates which sides they don’t work with, the sinaloa cartel, whose control has since fractured into many offshoots, many of which were taken over by former military the cartels brought on for muscle that predictably took over, the Zetas.

In fact, I bet Venezuela’s operation was a deal with the military to allow it, to stand down and give a few loyalist units up. That their military is their new de facto leader and their civilian government is now a puppet. That when they start to export oil and other materials for rich connected dickheads it will foster resistance, and in response to that the CIA will help their military put it down helping to sponsor paramilitaries for operations the military doesn’t want to do directly, like running collective punishment death squads to go through villages in restive areas. Paid for with drugs and guns on the black market. That’s the kind of shit they use drug money for.