For more than 20 years, the Cali cartel saturated U.S. streets with cocaine, ruining neighborhoods and lives while reaping millions in cash. Efforts to combat the influx of drugs from Colombia were often stymied by the careful organization and execution of the drug trade. Through the use of bribery, terrorist structures, and legitimate business practices, the cartel rose to become a serious threat to Colombian society's fragile stability, while providing over 70% of the world's cocaine to various markets. It took more than two decades and a global effort, spearheaded by U.S. law enforcement, to topple this notorious criminal organization. The rise and fall of one of Colombia's most notorious drug cartels is a story of how organized crime can function at the most sophisticated levels, yet still be taken down by the very forces it seeks to evade. This book vividly examines the Cali Cartel, providing unique insight into the history of international trafficking, organized crime, and U.S. drug policy. Relying on first hand accounts, interviews, and DEA records, Chepesiuk brings the story to life, illustrating how drug traffickers operate and why they are so difficult to stop. In detailing law enforcement's biggest takedown, this book describes how such transnational criminal organizations must be dismantled, and why drug trafficking continues to be an important problem in the United States. The fall of the cartel also provides lessons for law enforcement efforts to combat terrorists and other formidable criminal organizations.

A pacifists timely and passionate manifesto addressing the issue of global warming. Utopia, as Ratzlaff explains, is not some unattainable oasis but rather a world without war and with a balanced global habitat that can sustain future generations. [R]ank and file Americans need to be able to comprehend what global warming is all about, the author writes, in order to grasp what will happen if we fail to take immediate steps to combat it. The book is not a scientific treatise bogged down with academic language, but rather a pacifists simple approach to solving one of the worlds most difficult dilemmas. Employing a minimum of hard data to explore melting ice caps, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and ocean currents, Ratzlaff effectively illustrates the cause-and-effect relationship between human activity and the planets well-being. While Al Gore answered the hows and whys of global warming in An Inconvenient Truth, Ratzlaff illustrates the imminent need for vast governmental and political changes, and he explains the consequences of ignoring the obvious threat to our planet. The author states that one of the biggest problems with the currentapproach to global warming is the tendency of advocates to ignore the significant role of population growth. Additionally, at the roots of global warming lay nationalism, religious wars and the military-industrial complexRatzlaff outright blames governments and corporations for the current situation. After demonstrating the various successes of the United Nations in heading off global conflicts, the author concludes that the UN is the only organization capable of becoming a fully empowered international governing body. Yet handcuffed by its current structure, it can do nothing more than cast environmental resolutions that are often ignored. Unlike other books that attempt to tackle major global issues, rather than pointing out the problems and offering no solutions, Ratzlaff rounds out each of the seven steps with definitive alternatives in his If I Were President summaries. A thorough yet easy-to-comprehend take on global warming. KIRKUS REVIEWS