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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:17 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> The Afghan War: "No Blood for Opium"</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in"
align=justify><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt" size=5><B>The Afghan War: "No Blood
for Opium"</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4>The Hidden
Military Agenda is to Protect the Drug Trade</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><A
href="http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18768">http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18768</A></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">by Dr. John Jiggens </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><A
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/">Global Research</A>, April 21, 2010</DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>It was common during
the opening of the Iraq war to see slogans proclaiming “No blood for oil!” The
cover story for the war – Saddam’s links with Al Qaida and his weapons of mass
destruction – were obvious mass deceptions, hiding a far less palatable imperial
agenda. The truth was that Iraq was a major producer of oil and, in our age, the
Age of Oil, oil is the most strategic resource of all. For many it was obvious
that the real agenda of the war was an imperialistic grab for Iraqi oil. This
was confirmed when Iraq’s state-owned oil company was privatised to western
interests in the aftermath of the invasion.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Why then are there no
slogans saying “No blood for opium!”? Afghanistan’s major product is opium and
opium production has increased remarkably during the present war. The current
NATO action around Marjah is clearly motivated by opium. It is reported to be
Afghanistan’s main opium-producing area. Why then won’t people consider that the
real agenda of the Afghan war has been control of the opium trade?</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>The weapons of mass
deception tell us that the opium belongs to the Taliban and that the US is
fighting a war on drugs as well as terror. Yet it remains a curious fact that
the opium trade has tracked across Southern Asia for the past five decades from
east to west, following US wars, and always under the control of US assets.
</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>In the 1960s, when the
US fought a secret war in Laos using the Hmong opium army of Vang Pao as its
proxy, Southeast Asia produced 70% of the world’s illicit opium. After the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Afghanistan production, controlled by US-backed
drug lords, took off, till it rivalled Southeast Asian production. Since 2002,
Afghan opium production, encouraged by both the Taliban and US-backed drug
lords, has reached 93% of world illicit production, an unparalleled performance.
</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>The graph below from
the UN World Drug Report 2008 shows the astonishing increase in Afghan opium
production that followed the US invasion. </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR><IMG height=412
src="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articlePictures/jiggens.JPG" width=804
align=bottom border=0 name=graphics1><BR> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>In the 1980s the US
supported Islamic fundamentalists, the Mujahideen, against the Soviets in
Afghanistan. To pay for their war, the Mujahideen ordered peasants to grow opium
as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local
syndicates, under the protection of Pakistani Intelligence, operated hundreds of
heroin labs. As the Golden Crescent in Southwest Asia eclipsed the Golden
Triangle in Southeast Asia as the centre of the heroin trade, it sent rates of
addiction spiralling in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the Soviet Union.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>To hide US complicity
in the drug trade, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officers were required to look
away from the drug-dealing intrigues of the US allies and the support they
received from Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and the services of
Pakistani banks. The CIA’s mission was to destabilise the Soviet Union through
the promotion of militant Islam inside the Central Asian Republics and they
sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. Their mission was to do as much
damage as possible to the Soviets. Knowing the drug war would hasten the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIA facilitated the operation of anti-Soviet
rebels in the provinces of Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Georgia. Drugs were used to
finance terrorism and western intelligence agencies used their control of drugs
to influence political factions in Central Asia.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>The Soviet army
withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, leaving a civil war between the US-funded
mujahideen and the Soviet-supported government that raged until 1992. In the
chaos that followed the mujahideen victory, Afghanistan lapsed into a period of
warlordism in which opium growing thrived. </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>The Taliban emerged
from the chaos, dedicated to removing the war lords and applying a strict
interpretation of Sharia law. They captured Kandahar in 1994, and expanded their
control throughout Afghanistan, capturing Kabul in 1996, and declaring the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Under the policies of
the Taliban government, opium production in Afghanistan was curbed. In September
1999, the Taliban authorities issued a decree, requiring all opium-growers in
Afghanistan to reduce output by one-third. A second decree, issued in July 2000,
required farmers to completely stop opium cultivation. Ordering the ban on opium
growing, Taliban leader Mullah Omar called the drug trade “un-Islamic”.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>As a result, 2001 was
the worst year for global opium production in the period between 1990 and 2007.
During the 1990s, global opium production averaged over 4000 tonnes. In 2001,
opium production fell to less than 200 tonnes. Although it was not admitted by
the Howard government, which claimed the credit itself, Australia’s 2001 heroin
shortage was due to the Taliban.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Following the attack
on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001, the armies of
the northern alliance, led by US Special Forces, supported by daisy cutters,
cluster bombs and bunker-busting missiles, shattered the Taliban forces in
Afghanistan. The opium ban was lifted and, with CIA-backed warlords back in
control, Afghanistan again became the major producer of opium. Despite the
official denials, Hillary Mann Leverett, a former US National Security Council
official for Afghanistan, confirmed that the US knew that government ministers
in Afghanistan, including the minister of defence in 2002, were involved in drug
trafficking. </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>After 2002 Afghan
opium production rose to unheard of levels. By 2007, Afghanistan was producing
enough heroin to supply the entire world. In 2009, Thomas Schweich, who served
as US state department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform for
Afghanistan, accused President Hamid Karzai of impeding the war on drugs.
Schweich also accused the Pentagon of obstructing attempts to get military
forces to assist and protect opium crop eradication drives.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Schweich wrote in the
New York Times that "narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government".
He said Karzai was reluctant to move against big drug lords in his political
power base in the south, where most of the country's opium and heroin is
produced. </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>The most prominent of
these suspected drug lords was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid
Karzai. Ahmed Wali Karzai was said to have orchestrated the manufacture of
hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in
August 2009. He was also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens
of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to
manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots. US officials have criticised his
“mafia-like” control of southern Afghanistan. The New York Times reported that
the Obama administration had vowed to crack down on the drug lords who permeate
the highest levels of President Karzai’s administration, and they pressed
President Karzai to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he refused
to do so.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>"Karzai was playing us
like a fiddle," Schweich wrote. "The US would spend billions of dollars on
infrastructure development; the US and its allies would fight the Taliban;
Karzai's friends could get richer off the drug trade. Karzai had Taliban enemies
who profited from drugs but he had even more supporters who did."</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>But who was playing
who like a fiddle?</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Was it the puppet
President or the puppet masters who installed him?</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>As Douglas Valentine
shows in his history of the War on Drugs, The Strength of the Pack, this
never-ending war has been a phony contest, an arm wrestle between two arms of
the US state, the DEA and the CIA; with the DEA vainly attempting to prosecute
the war, while the CIA protects its drug-dealing assets.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-GB style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>During the Nineteenth
and Twentieth centuries, European powers (chiefly the UK) and Japan used the
opium trade to weaken and subjugate China. During the Twenty-First century, it
seems that the opium weapon is being used against Iran, Russia and the former
Soviet republics, which all face spiralling rate of addiction and covert US
penetration as the Afghan War fuels central Asia’s heroin plague. </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN
lang=en-GB><BR></SPAN><STRONG><SPAN lang=en-GB>Dr John
Jiggens</SPAN></STRONG><EM><SPAN lang=en-GB> is the author of “The killer cop
and the murder of Donald Mackay”.</SPAN></EM></DIV></DIV></FONT><br />--
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