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US opium proof and their dangerous terrorist funding

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Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:44 pm Post subject: US opium proof and their dangerous terrorist funding

Quote:

Feature: In Strategy Shift, US Troops to Join Battle Against Opium in Afghanistan
from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #498, 8/17/07
The United States military is melding counterinsurgency with counternarcotics missions in Afghanistan in what officials called "a basic strategy shift" in its Afghan campaign. Up until now, the US military has shied away from anti-drug operations in Afghanistan, leaving them to the DEA, the British, and Afghan authorities in a bid to avoid alienating Afghan peasant populations dependent on the poppy crop for an income

.

If the US were actually truthful about this they would stop the opium growth but it's a great income for funding their war in Iraq. This is shown by weak policies like:

Quote:

Southwest Asia: State Department Says US Afghanistan Drug Policy Will Shift, But Not Much
from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #496, 8/3/07
In a meeting last week with "a select group of Washington analysts," Thomas Schweich, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, conceded that US efforts to destroy the Afghan opium industry had achieved only "mixed results" and said that the Bush administration would adjust its policies to be more effective. But Schweich's remarks suggested that any changes would be at the margins.

They don't want to destroy it because it funds their illegal war, much like the US did in Vietnam. 'Would be at the margins' Haha, basically nothing.

The export value � about $3.1 billion � is equivalent to about half of the legal Afghan economy...

That's a massive increase in opium production, all under the greedy watchful eye of the US. If they were actually serious about removing the Taliban, they'd stop them being funded by the Opium money. But they've no interest in getting Bin Laden, al qaeda or the Taliban.

Quote:

In the year 2004 alone, opium production in Afghanistan increased by 64 percent. Without opium, there is hardly any Afghan economy to speak of. 60 percent of Afghan�s gross domestic product is opium-related, and most of the rest of the Afghan economy is based on serving the needs of the American military camped there.

Why not crush the country, remove the opium money and then see what happens. They've had 6 years to do this and what result do they have so far? Taliban there, Bin Laden (if he ever existed is there), Al Qaeda still there. Good Job US.

Quote:

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.

A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.

Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

American sponsored terrorism. The Jendullah is a group that is part funded by the opium trade and part from the US. The US is against terrorism unless it state run terrorism. This is what the US did with Al Qaeda to. The US practically created, Al Qaeda, nurturing them in the beginning as a terror group to go after the Soviets. That was also under Cheney's influence.

Or this maybe:

Quote:

Hersh: U.S. Funds Being Secretly Funneled To Violent Al Qaeda-Linked Groups
New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the �single most explosive� element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.

Hersh says the U.S. has been �pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight� for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to �stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.� Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of �three Sunni jihadist groups� who are �connected to al Qaeda� but �want to take on Hezbollah.�

Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: �We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11.�

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/

The US has no idea why it is in this mess of their own creation. It's not fire against fire, it's the US starting the fire. Bring the troops out because they are dying for no reason.

How people can come on these forums and defend the US about this 'war on terrorism' is beyond me. I suppose in some sense they need to believe that this isn't the biggest Kock up in history and that it was people they voted in and support that did it.

oskinny1

Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:35 pm Post subject:

How do you propose the US stop the growth of poppies? Pay off the farmers? OK, then you have the Taliban put a gun to the farmer's family and tell him to grow it anyway.

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject:

CNN journalist Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, has stated

Quote:

The story about bin Laden and the CIA -- that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden -- is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.[39]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:40 pm Post subject:

My suggestion is they don't want to affect the growth of the opium. They are controlling it along with the Taliban. It is helping to fund the war in Iraq. 3.1 billion, stated worth, would be helpful to a corrupt, bankrupt government. That is why policies towards stopping the opium growth are non-existent. The most corrupt governments use the most corrupt methods. The US is no different.

Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:05 pm Post subject:

Quote:

The Legacy of the Opium Wars on Modern Afghanistan

Historically, the lucrative opium trade sponsored by the British in the 19th Century created the foundations for the opium and heroin industry in modern-day Afghanistan, which today produces 92 percent of the World's supply of heroin.7

Opium cultivation was introduced in the Golden Triangle Region (Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand) in Southeast Asia as well as in other areas. The legacy of opium in Afghanistan is a result of the both the historic drug trade sponsored by the British and the devastation of Afghanistan during the American-Pakistani initiated Soviet-Afghan War.8 It is during the Soviet-Afghan war that the large scale commercial cultivation of opium was launch in Afghanistan, supported and protected by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence. This supply was directed towards the Western heroin market.

The International Drug Trade: The Narcotics Market

If, in the course of their past history, Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal had been actively supporting the drug trade, what is preventing it from occurring today, especially with the mammoth profit yields and hard currency earnings that the illegal drug industry generates.

The economic principles guarded by the British government during the Opium Wars are still the same in modern times. Illicit drugs or narcotics are still a major commodity and an important component of international trade. Opium from Afghanistan constitutes a large portion of the world�s narcotics market, which was estimated by the U.N. to be approximately $400-500 billion.9

Narcotics are an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, which also support Western financial interests. The CIA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies, such as the Pakistani ISI working in Afghanistan, has set up covert operations which support the drug trade:

"Our conclusion remains that the first target of an effective drug strategy should be Washington itself, and specifically its own connections with corrupt, drug-linked forces in other parts of the world. We argued that Washington�s covert operations overseas had been a major factor in generating changes in the overall pattern of drug flows into the United States, and cited the Vietnam-generated heroin epidemic of the 1960s and the Afghan-generated heroin epidemic of the 1980s as analogues of the central concern of this book: the explosion of cocaine trafficking through Central America in the Reagan years, made possible by the administration�s covert operation to overthrow the Nicaraguan Sandinistas [vis-�-vis Iran-Contra].(Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Jonathan Marshall and Peter Dale Scott, April 1998)

Michel Chossudovsky has also clarified the economic mechanisms behind the illicit narcotics trade:

Based on 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes �the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.�

(�)

Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized. The drug trade is protected. Amply documented the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.

The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics.

(Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?, Global Research September 21, 2006)

The Rise of Opium under the presence of NATO in Afghanistan

In economic terms, demand is what creates supply. The supply of opium and heroin has been rising. This is happening right under NATO�s nose. NATO claims that it has been tolerating some growth of opium so as not to incite violence against NATO troops.

Afghanistan must be demilitarized. To do so does not take a standing army but the rooting out of weapons and an end to the flow of illicit narcotics. It is this outward flow of narcotics that creates an inverse, inward flow of weapons into Afghanistan.

The multi-billion dollar (U.S.) heroin industry of Afghanistan must be addressed. Instead of eliminating the drug trade, foreign military presence has assisted in restoring it.

NATO, as an entity, has become an accessory to major narcotics proliferation and criminal activity. Opium is not truly being reduced: in fact all the figures show that it is on the rise. This is happening under the eyes of NATO as confirmed by several media reports.

Pledges to Eliminate Opium and Heroin not kept, but "Grossly Violated"

Afghanistan is central to the international narcotics market and the production of heroin. According to the U.K. Guardian (October 3, 2001) Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, presented the Anglo-American invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a means to erradicate the illicit durg trade. "The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people buying their [Afghan] drugs on British streets," said Tony Blair. "That is another part of their [the Taliban�s] regime that we should seek to destroy."

The British Prime Minister�s justifications for war as a matter of public record have proven to be rhetoric, in an attempt to gain public support. Tony Blair�s statement is ironic because British and NATO troops have allowed the cultivation of opium to go unchecked in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

By the virtue of the British Prime Minister�s own statements and pledges, he is guilty of negligence and the sacrificing of British lives. Stopping the cultivation of opium to save British lives was used as a justification in 2001 for the invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The invasion did not contribute to curtailing the cultivation of opium, quite the opposite.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061017&articleId=3516

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject:

Dome Vans wrote:

My suggestion is they don't want to affect the growth of the opium. They are controlling it along with the Taliban. It is helping to fund the war in Iraq. 3.1 billion, stated worth, would be helpful to a corrupt, bankrupt government. That is why policies towards stopping the opium growth are non-existent. The most corrupt governments use the most corrupt methods. The US is no different.

Sorry, I missed something. How is it funding the war in Iraq?

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:25 pm Post subject:

9-11 conspiracy sites ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Quote:

"Islamic Terrorists" supported by Uncle Sam: Bush Administration "Black Ops" directed against Iran, Lebanon and Syria
- by Prof Michel Chossudovsky - 2007-05-31
The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a "Black Op" to destabilize Iran

US government fans homeland terrorism fear
- by Larry Chin - 2007-05-15
A panel of high level government, military officials and security "experts" are constructing a homeland security plan that would include martial law and the suspension of civil liberties.

Slip of the tongue? Rumsfeld admits that "Flight 93" was shot down
- by Prof Michel Chossudovsky - 2007-05-12
The President and Commander in Chief had ordered the shooting down of a commercial aircraft on the morning of 9/11.

VIDEO: Collapse of WTC Building Seven
- 2007-04-18
The collapse had been announced ahead of time.

Quote:

Audio Video Library

VIDEO: America's "Long War". From the Truman Doctrine to the NeoCons
VIDEO: Canada and the Afghan War
VIDEO: The 9/11 Solution
VIDEO: Terror rendition prisons 'did exist'
VIDEO: Flight 77: Evidence suggests that a Plane did not hit the Pentagon
VIDEO: Ludicrous Diversion, 7/7 London Bombings Documentary
VIDEO: The Dangers of a Nuclear War
VIDEO: 100,000 Iraqi Kids Killed
VIDEO: British Mercenary

I don't trust your source.

Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:24 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Sorry, I missed something. How is it funding the war in Iraq?

Yep you did miss something. Money from the Opium trade, which the US is in full compliance with, is taking their cut and helping to contribute arms and fund their war in Iraq. Read the previous article, you will see the same happened in Vietnam and the same is happening now in Afghanistan. The stats are conclusive proof that America is doing nothing to stop the opium trade, because it would be cutting off part of their funding.

Quote:

9-11 conspiracy sites ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Any site that is pro or anti war should be taken with a grain of salt. Not one more than the other.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:33 pm Post subject:

So, the USA is collaborating with the taliban to grow opium and sell it and then using the money in Iraq?

Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:44 pm Post subject:

BJWD Re: prev mail a little higher up the page.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject:

Could you provide some reputable evidence on this subject? Thinkprogress ain't gonna cut it. I'm not opposed to the idea that the yanks would do this, but I'd like to see some evidence first.

Dome Vans
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject:

Quote:

There are well established links between the illicit drug trade, U.S. foreign policy, and global financial institutions. While the discussions of these are intricate and complex, the summation of them is not. The CIA - and more recently Special Forces - have utilized the heroin and cocaine trades to finance �black ops.� Corporations have equally benefited by laundering vast amounts of drug money through financial institutions and Wall Street.

One of the implicit �benefits� of massive instability resulting from conflict and poverty is the encouragement of drug production. The desperation created in nations such as Afghanistan and Iraq fuels the increase of illicit drug manufacture. It has been argued by some that the reason for the U.S. Southeast Asia intervention (Vietnam War) was to control the �Golden Triangle. Certainly, once the Taliban stopped virtually all of the opium production in Afghanistan, Myanmar/Burma once more emerged as the leading source of opium. The invasion of Afghanistan, and removal of the Taliban, has seen opium production in Afghanistan grow each year - it is now at record highs. It is hardly likely that this is simply coincidence.

It is no surprise then that Iraq would join the opium trail. The business is �good� for all �interests.� Crime rings, war lords, and extremist groups get a massive surge of resources. The CIA and Special Forces get funding for illicit operations. Arms dealers (including the U.S. which is the world�s largest arms dealer) are assured ongoing demand. Corporations get massive infusions of cash to extend their operations and line their pockets. Meanwhile, the �war on drugs� facilitates a growing militarized police state. With the privatization of jails and prisons, the growing populations of those incarcerated in the �war� creates a profitable labor force, while tax payers pay the bill for the whole thing. This was detailed in the case of Iran/Contra by Gary Webb in his series in the San Jose Mercury News and then in his book �Dark Alliance:The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.�

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=56

I also would hope that it is not linked with funding, but all facts and figures seem to point towards it.
The biggest crop of Opium since America took 'control' of Afghanistan. Policies from the US are not looking at stopping it.
Any money they can make to aid and fund the war in Iraq would be greatly received. Bush's executive powers are wearing thin (i would hope in the states) he can't commit, or shouldn't be allowed to commit more of the US people taxes into this blackhole.

Quote:

A spokesman for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics said that this year the government will rely on "traditional techniques" such as sending people into fields to trample or plow opium poppies before they are harvested.

"Eradication is only possible by forcing people to eliminate the poppy and grow other crops," the British official said.

"We don't offer any compensation for poppy elimination. In 2002, people were offered money to eliminate poppy, and it played havoc. All the money went into people's pockets and they did not eliminate poppy cultivation."

Brilliant, this is bound to stop it.

It now seems strange that Opium growth and production is increasing in the South of Iraq, there's some good money there for any invading force that might like to tap into the market and control the flow and cream the benefits. And carry on the illegal war. Hello America!

oskinny1

Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:06 am Post subject:

Dome Vans wrote:

This is an opinion, not a suggestion.

Why was the opium lower during the Taliban's reign? Because they would kill the farmers, the US doesn't use this tactic (on purpose).

SPINOZA

Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Location: $eoul

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:55 pm Post subject:

According to NATO rules of engagement, it is not possible to destroy the opium crops. Opium in Afghanistan in 2007 is expected to be a record yield. (heard it on the BBC)

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