Given what I usually hear about the armed services, I found it refreshing that the story was about drugs as opposed to the usual shenanigans the dominionists or "oathkeepers" get up to by putting rapture-freaks in charge of large amounts of guns and bombs.

Yeah, sadly I was under the impression the armed forces have been doing shit like this with all recruits/cadets since the Korean War, at least.

The ghost of J. Edgar Hoover will yet choke our society to death in the name of this gross, doublethinking, moral standard of "the enemy's committing atrocities to get the job done, we need to be more atrocious to beat them!"

I can't speak for everyone, but the Army did it to me when I was in. Basically, CID or whatever would scoop up various small-time contraband holders/ dealers and turn them into prison narcs, in exchange for not completely fucking them with UCMJ. One of my units got shut down for almost two weeks because of a drug-smuggling scandal - turned out they'd flipped the ringleader, this South American SPC who was due to be discharged anyway. Little bastard fingered two dozen soldiers and Marines all across post; rumor was he'd been wearing a wire for a month, but who the hell knows. *I* wasn't involved, since I spent my weekends watching anime and playing D&D with the dorks and furries, rather than having sexy parties with all the cool kids, but the MPs still tossed my shit and had me up against the wall with drug dogs for hours.

The one thing I can say in this practice's defense is that OSI/CID/whatever doesn't pressgang just anyone into these "programs" - at least, not as far as I'm aware. Usually, these informants are people who've already been caught doing something naughty; if you're not the sort of Private who already does meth on Sunday, you're not going to make a good narc. Furthermore, the FBI already does this stuff to private citizens (Ruby Ridge, anyone?), and I think most people are, if not pleased with this practice, then at least resigned to it. Getting messed with by the government comes with the territory once you're in service, so unless/until we stop this kind of stuff happening to civilians, I don't see how anyone can make a case against it within the military.

Using informants is the laziest way to do policing and produces the most collateral damage. The FBI is notorious for this, and I can tell you that innocent people get ruined because of it. That said, your description of the libertarian paradise that is the US Army was very entertaining. Four Stars General for you.