Saw Lu is easily one of the greatest men to have ever trod this earth

He founded a nation you've never heard of, ended headhunting as a cultural practice, championed a people's right to exist separate from outside control, endured torture, exile and never lost his faith

Patrick Winn wrote a tremendous book, Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel that Survived the CIA. This is not so much a book review as an homage to a man I am sorry I never met, and relatedly, one more nuclear-missile-sized argument for the abolishment of the failed experiment called the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

I am not going to give a summary of the book - that would be like summarizing the Iliad and the Odyssey by saying “War is hard, there are highs and lows and when you fight to get home, your dog is dead and your wife is throwing banquets for horny guys who chose not to go to war.”