bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
The Truth About The USA, Drugs and Afghanistan
11 Jul 2006
“Before 1980, Afghanistan produced 0% of the world’s opium. But then the CIA moved in, and by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world’s heroin supply. By 1999, they were churning out 3,200 TONS of heroin a year nearly 80% of the total market supply. But then something unexpected happened. The Taliban rose to power, and by 2000 they had destroyed nearly all of the opium fields. Production dropped from 3,000+ tons to only 185 tons, a 94% reduction!”
Amongst the major reasons given by the West when invading Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 was the connection between drugs and terrorism.
“We act also because the al-Qaida network and the Taliban regime are funded in large part on the drugs trade. Ninety per cent of all heroin sold in Britain originates from Afghanistan. Stopping that trade is, again, directly in our interests.” –Prime Minister Blair in an address to the British people on the ongoing attacks on Afghanistan, 10/7/01
Tony Blair again used this excuse recently to justify sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Whilst in the US enormously costly ads bought by the US government informed American’s that to buy cocaine or heroin is to help terrorism.
The truth is that since the invasion of Afghanistan’s the opium production has skyrocketed. Although the Taliban had virtually stamped out poppy production, the country now accounts for two-third of the world’s heroin.
A report in US Portland Independent Media sheds light on the situation:
“Before 1980, Afghanistan produced 0% of the world’s opium. But then the CIA moved in, and by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world’s heroin supply. By 1999, they were churning out 3,200 TONS of heroin a year nearly 80% of the total market supply. But then something unexpected happened. The Taliban rose to power, and by 2000 they had destroyed nearly all of the opium fields. Production dropped from 3,000+ tons to only 185 tons, a 94% reduction!”
Only belatedly did major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and the Washington Post begin to acknowledge, in stories placed well back in the paper, and with much less emphasis, that the Northern Alliance – their allies against the Taliban – were in real control of the heroin trade. Smuggling routes have shifted from south through Pakistan northward through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
Indeed there is compelling evidence that the US and the western capitalist establishments (via the CIA) are directly involved in narco-trafficing. Investigative journalist Mike Ruppert commented:
“Until February, Afghanistan had been the world’s largest producer of opium/heroin, claiming close to 70% of the world’s total production. That opium, consumed largely in Western Europe and smuggled through the Balkans, was a direct source of cash deposits in Western financial institutions and markets.
… Prior to the WTC attacks, credible sources, including the U.S. government, the IMF, Le Monde and the U.S. Senate placed the amount of drug cash flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks at around $250-$300 billion a year.”
This US involvement in narco-trafficking suggests a compelling interest on the part of the capitalist establishment (including Big Energy, Banks, Wall Street and arms dealers) to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. With the giants of industry on board, its no surprise they whipped up pre-war hysteria on front pages and TVs across the western world. Virtually, every major institution in American life (including the Congress) is committed to this new crusade.
The reality is that the CIA has a history of involvement in the Drug Trade across the world as the following summary from the work of author and former US State Department William Blum official highlights.
1947 to 1951, FRANCE
According to Alfred W. McCoy in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to take control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks and formed a partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world.
Early 1950s, SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos), the world’s largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the ClA’s principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. (Christopher Robbins, Air America, Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9.)
1950s to early 1970s, INDOCHINA
During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI’s in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world’s illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America’s booming heroin market.
1973-80, AUSTRALIA
The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. (Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, W.W. Norton & Co., 1987.)
1970s and 1980s, PANAMA
For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general, once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically drug trafficking through Panama increased after the US invasion. (John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, Random House, 1991; National Security Archive Documentation Packet The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations.)
1980s, CENTRAL AMERICA
The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the cocaine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras.
Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking. They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S.
Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service closely associated with the CIA harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway. Additionally, the Medellin Cartel’s Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.
The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these ClA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received US government contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to the contras. Southern Air Transport, “formerly” ClA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as ‘Contra Craft,’ these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn’t clued in, and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.
1980s to early 1990s, AFGHANISTAN
ClA-supported Afghan fighters engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe.
Mid-1980s to early 199Os, HAITI
While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients’ drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN was purportedly created to fight the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some of the Haitian military and political leaders.
All of the above leads to the stark conclusion that their is a connection between drugs and terrorism – US State terrorism that is, that uses the proceeds to fund its CIA black operations. If the Britain wants to stop the flood of drugs onto its streets we suggest sending the troops their not Afghanistan.
Source: KCom Journal
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=13577&TagID=1
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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
