"Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban's drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels....That quote is from I Run My Own Damn Thinktank who I found via the Unrepenantcowboy.
In other words, intelligence agencies, powerful business, drug traders and organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes. A large share of this multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international banks together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens launder large amounts of narco-dollars.
This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have "political friends in high places." Legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between "businesspeople" and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions including the Military."
The original article is by Michel Chossudovsky, who is warning that is the U.S. is preparing for World War 3 by targeting Iran.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. he can be reached at the globalresearch.ca website
His latest book was released at the end of July, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.
Read the Preface.
Another article he just posted, America's Holy Crusade Against the Muslim World.
ReplyDeleteIs it a holy crusade? Or general stupidity?
ReplyDeleteWho goes into Afghanistan and wins a war? Let's see . . . Alexander and Genghis Khan. The British, the Russians both lost massively and we go in? Doesn't anyone read history?
On top of that we don't understand the tribal system in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It took us what, 4-5 years to figure out that we needed the tribal leaders on our side to try to calm things down?
The author may be assuming too much intelligence in Washington - in either the Bush administration or, I am sorry to say, in the Obama administration about Afghanistan.
We let tribal leaders and warlords grow poppies and sell opium so they will be on our side. Now the Taliban lets people in their territory grow opium and they tax the growers by collecting part of the opium and selling it to buy weapons.
So we have gone from a repressive Islamic government that slowed down opium trade to everyone selling opium? Sounds like our attack for freedom for Afghans increased the drug trade. And we still don't understand their tribal system!
Opium is Afghanistan's number one export. It is also a miracle drug that humans must have to preserve our well being.
ReplyDeleteBig Pharm will contribute to anyone who is willing to sacrifice our soldiers for raw opium. They make bazillions of dollars from something that should be grown in the back yard.
And....
Let's not forget the other attraction...
1 Trillion in Mineral Resources
The only thing we can be sure of is that our being in Afghanistan has nothing to do with 9/11.
LOL Maybe we should buy all the opium and have a monopoly on the world source. Of course then we would have to buy from Turkey, Vietnam, Laos, etc. to say nothing of the mob. But if we owned it all we could set the price hehehe.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder if drug laws are a waste of time. It sells. Why should we think we can control it on the street? Sell it in the drug stores! Or alcohol stores. Here in PA the state owns the liquor stores. Why not sell dope at the same varied price as liquor? Collect taxes! And cut off the extreme profits of the illegal dealers.
I can just see going into the Wine and Spirits store and asking for an ounce of dope of the same quality as single malt scotch.
Oops! I bet I get in trouble for this one!
I like your idea, Bob. It will make all the Wal-Marts even weirder, but since I never shop there, so what?
ReplyDeleteThey are intelligent, just totally depraved. I may be more of a Calvinist than you, Bob.
ReplyDeleteIf interested in the depravity of our government including the so-called "war on drugs" Michael Ruppert will rock your world.
Wall Street, CIA & The Global Drug Trade
Check his website, From the Wilderness
The number of soldiers killed over the weekend is now 22.
ReplyDeleteI weep daily for the lives lost in Afganistan. In October of 2001 I kept asking doesn't anyone remember Vietnam? One of my preacher friends told me this was a "just" war, as if there is ever such a thing. Something most do seem to remember is the golden rule, "them that has the gold, rules."
ReplyDeleteWell, one reason the US is in Afghanistan is because Obama won't leave.
ReplyDeleteAnd why would he have a problem with drugs? He used them, heavily, in college by his own admission in "Dreams of My Father".
He is just another tool of the corpo/military complex.
Who ya kiddin? That atheist wants power, and he will take any guise to get it.
Morrison,
ReplyDeleteTry talking about something you know about, or something true.
The first paragraph speculates on an unknown future. The second is an ignorant non sequitur. The third is wild eyed speculation. And the fourth is an out and out lie.
With Bush the plain facts easily showed how stupid and evil he was. With Obama, nobody seems to be able to criticize him without resorting to bizarre and baseless lies.
That by itself ought to tell you something...