Britain is protecting the biggest ‘Heroin Crop’ of all time

[Neo]

Britain is protecting the biggest ‘Heroin Crop’ of all time ​

8 April, 2009

By Craig Murray- Mail Online

This week the 64th British soldier to die in Afghanistan, Corporal Mike Gilyeat, was buried. All the right things were said about this brave soldier, just as, on current trends, they will be said about one or more of his colleagues who follow him next week.The alarming escalation of the casualty rate among British soldiers in Afghanistan ? up to ten per cent ? led to discussion this week on whether it could be fairly compared to casualty rates in the Second World War.

Killing fields: Farmers in Afghanistan gather an opium crop which will be made into heroin​

But the key question is this: what are our servicemen dying for? There are glib answers to that: bringing democracy and development to Afghanistan, supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai in its attempt to establish order in the country, fighting the Taliban and preventing the further spread of radical Islam into Pakistan.

But do these answers stand up to close analysis?

There has been too easy an acceptance of the lazy notion that the war in Afghanistan is the ‘good’ war, while the war in Iraq is the ‘bad’ war, the blunder. The origins of this view are not irrational. There was a logic to attacking Afghanistan after 9/11.

Afghanistan was indeed the headquarters of Osama Bin Laden and his organisation, who had been installed and financed there by the CIA to fight the Soviets from 1979 until 1989. By comparison, the attack on Iraq ? which was an enemy of Al Qaeda and no threat to us ? was plainly irrational in terms of the official justification.

So the attack on Afghanistan has enjoyed a much greater sense of public legitimacy. But the operation to remove Bin Laden was one thing. Six years of occupation are clearly another.

Head of the Afghan armed forces: General Abdul Rashid Dostrum​

Few seem to turn a hair at the officially expressed view that our occupation of Iraq may last for decades.

Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell has declared, fatuously, that the Afghan war is ‘winnable’.

Afghanistan was not militarily winnable by the British Empire at the height of its supremacy. It was not winnable by Darius or Alexander, by Shah, Tsar or Great Moghul. It could not be subdued by 240,000 Soviet troops. But what, precisely, are we trying to win?

In six years, the occupation has wrought one massive transformation in Afghanistan, a development so huge that it has increased Afghan GDP by 66 per cent and constitutes 40 per cent of the entire economy. That is a startling achievement, by any standards. Yet we are not trumpeting it. Why not?

The answer is this. The achievement is the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen.

The Taliban had reduced the opium crop to precisely nil. I would not advocate their methods for doing this, which involved lopping bits, often vital bits, off people. The Taliban were a bunch of mad and deeply unpleasant religious fanatics. But one of the things they were vehemently against was opium.

That is an inconvenient truth that our spin has managed to obscure. Nobody has denied the sincerity of the Taliban’s crazy religious zeal, and they were as unlikely to sell you heroin as a bottle of Johnnie Walker.

They stamped out the opium trade, and impoverished and drove out the drug warlords whose warring and rapacity had ruined what was left of the country after the Soviet war.

That is about the only good thing you can say about the Taliban; there are plenty of very bad things to say about them. But their suppression of the opium trade and the drug barons is undeniable fact.

Now we are occupying the country, that has changed. According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60 per cent. This year will be even bigger.

Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and ‘value-added’ operations.

It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.

How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government ? the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.

When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons ? especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance ? to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers.

President Karzai is a good man. He has never had an opponent killed, which may not sound like much but is highly unusual in this region and possibly unique in an Afghan leader. But nobody really believes he is running the country. He asked America to stop its recent bombing campaign in the south because it was leading to an increase in support for the Taliban. The United States simply ignored him. Above all, he has no control at all over the warlords among his ministers and governors, each of whom runs his own kingdom and whose primary concern is self-enrichment through heroin.

My knowledge of all this comes from my time as British Ambassador in neighbouring Uzbekistan from 2002 until 2004. I stood at the Friendship Bridge at Termez in 2003 and watched the Jeeps with blacked-out windows bringing the heroin through from Afghanistan, en route to Europe.

I watched the tankers of chemicals roaring into Afghanistan.

Yet I could not persuade my country to do anything about it. Alexander Litvinenko ? the former agent of the KGB, now the FSB, who died in London last November after being poisoned with polonium 210 ? had suffered the same frustration over the same topic.

There are a number of theories as to why Litvinenko had to flee Russia. The most popular blames his support for the theory that FSB agents planted bombs in Russian apartment blocks to stir up anti-Chechen feeling.

But the truth is that his discoveries about the heroin trade were what put his life in danger. Litvinenko was working for the KGB in St Petersburg in 2001 and 2002. He became concerned at the vast amounts of heroin coming from Afghanistan, in particular from the fiefdom of the (now) Head of the Afghan armed forces, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in north and east Afghanistan.

Dostum is an Uzbek, and the heroin passes over the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, where it is taken over by President Islam Karimov’s people. It is then shipped up the railway line, in bales of cotton, to St Petersburg and Riga.

The heroin Jeeps run from General Dostum to President Karimov. The UK, United States and Germany have all invested large sums in donating the most sophisticated detection and screening equipment to the Uzbek customs centre at Termez to stop the heroin coming through.

But the convoys of Jeeps running between Dostum and Karimov are simply waved around the side of the facility.

Litvinenko uncovered the St Petersburg end and was stunned by the involvement of the city authorities, local police and security services at the most senior levels. He reported in detail to President Vladimir Putin. Putin is, of course, from St Petersburg, and the people Litvinenko named were among Putin’s closest political allies. That is why Litvinenko, having miscalculated badly, had to flee Russia.

I had as little luck as Litvinenko in trying to get official action against this heroin trade. At the St Petersburg end he found those involved had the top protection. In Afghanistan, General Dostum is vital to Karzai’s coalition, and to the West’s pretence of a stable, democratic government.

Opium is produced all over Afghanistan, but especially in the north and north-east ? Dostum’s territory. Again, our Government’s spin doctors have tried hard to obscure this fact and make out that the bulk of the heroin is produced in the tiny areas of the south under Taliban control. But these are the most desolate, infertile rocky areas. It is a physical impossibility to produce the bulk of the vast opium harvest there.

That General Dostum is head of the Afghan armed forces and Deputy Minister of Defence is in itself a symbol of the bankruptcy of our policy. Dostum is known for tying opponents to tank tracks and running them over. He crammed prisoners into metal containers in the searing sun, causing scores to die of heat and thirst.

Since we brought ‘democracy’ to Afghanistan, Dostum ordered an MP who annoyed him to be pinned down while he attacked him. The sad thing is that Dostum is probably not the worst of those comprising the Karzai government, or the biggest drug smuggler among them.

Our Afghan policy is still victim to Tony Blair’s simplistic world view and his childish division of all conflicts into ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. The truth is that there are seldom any good guys among those vying for power in a country such as Afghanistan. To characterise the Karzai government as good guys is sheer nonsense.

Why then do we continue to send our soldiers to die in Afghanistan? Our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is the greatest recruiting sergeant for Islamic militants. As the great diplomat, soldier and adventurer Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Alexander Burnes pointed out before his death in the First Afghan War in 1841, there is no point in a military campaign in Afghanistan as every time you beat them, you just swell their numbers. Our only real achievement to date is falling street prices for heroin in London.

Remember this article next time you hear a politician calling for more troops to go into Afghanistan. And when you hear of another brave British life wasted there, remember you can add to the casualty figures all the young lives ruined, made miserable or ended by heroin in the UK.

They, too, are casualties of our Afghan policy.

 

[Bane Blade]

Quite an awesome conspiracy theory one that make sense but one has to disagree about alot of the things first things first journalists pour day and night over all the places being marked in Afghanistan figures coming out of the region another thing is that had that been the case media would have covered it like the hounds they are over here in Britain.

 

[Awesome]

I can't believe our people are dying to support drug lords! Are we giving logistical support to Nato so it can divert these chemicals to appease the warlords in Karzai's government? Which genius came up with the idea of forming an Afghan government of warlords when the real goal was (re)development of the country.

Idiocy abound! The 'good' war, indeed!

 

[S-2]

"The Taliban had reduced the opium crop to precisely nil."

Only after allowing a then world record crop in 1999, three years after assuming control of Afghanistan. See figure 1 for yearly production by tons.

"...The Taliban ... were vehemently against was opium."

This was untrue then and remains so-

UNODC 2008 Afghanistan Opium Survey

Table 3 on page 18 chronicles the cultivation of poppy last year by province. I've been through this a lot here but the key numbers are such-

Helmand 103,590 hectares of opium; Farah 15,010 hectares; Kandahar 14,623; Urozgan 9,399; Nimroz 6,203. This from approx. 157,000 hectares, down 36,000 from 2007. As you can see, Farah, Kandahar, Urozgan, and Nimroz account for about 45,235 hectares. From the rest of the entire nation we can conclude that about 8,500 hectares of opium were grown.

Helmand is the absolute center of the storm. Until two weeks ago British forces had not been south of Garmsir town in Helmand. At all. Ever. Google the city and then compare the distance to the Pakistani border. It is an immense amount of land upon which, likely, the vast majority of that 103,000 hectares has grown heretofore undisturbed. So too it's taliban watchers...until now.

Taliban? Of course. Of the provinces most involved in the opium trade, we can see from the above data that it is those areas closest to the Baluchi borders of Afghanistan, most particularly Helmand, Kandahar, and Urozgan-just to Kandahar's north. From these three provinces over 127,000 hectares have been planted.

In contrast, Nangahar competed for 1st place in opium production with Helmand in 2005. Both were around 29,000 hectares. We know what happened in Helmand over the last three years. How about Nangahar?

Zero. In Afghanistan's east America has done well. We've been fortuitous by the effects of drought but there have been other factors as well to include good provincial leadership.

We ain't burning or spraying fields at every turn.

Now let's look at the incidence of violence-

ICOS Maps-Afghanistan

Please assure that you are looking at the incidence map for Nov. 2008. This is an excellent tool though much maligned as suggesting the taliban control 72% of the country. That's not so. What it does show is those areas contested.

More specifically, it charts incidents that have occurred over the past year by locale and severity. What we see if inspecting closely is an arc of violence that stems from Helmand largely northeast generally tracing the border with Pakistan.

And that corresponds to our readings. Clearly the two most contested areas of Afghanistan are the eastern approaches to the Jalalabad-Kabul corridor from Konar to Khost and the southern green zones of Helmand-Kandahar-Urozgan.

Taliban.

The correlation between violence and opium cultivation in Afghanistan is clear. Now where do you think that opium is processed? Who benefits most by it's secure delivery to labs and who might even have a stake in value-adding by building their own labs.

I won't go that far but there's little doubt that the British efforts in central and southern Helmand shall prove IMMENSELY interesting. I believe that Helmand represents the guts of the insurgency. Our obligation is to maintain through 2009 the opium reverses elsewhere (dramatic) while beginning to erode this core of it's support. The moral and financial heart of this movement lie in Kandahar and Helmand.

Where's the Quetta shura again exactly?

Hope that helps to clarify some epic myths floating about.

One other small point. Currently cannabis is yielding the greatest $/hectare. This is a function of good prices, little policing, and almost nil labor costs. It also represents the greatest future growth potential in the drug market.

 

[Awesome]

"The Taliban had reduced the opium crop to precisely nil."

Only after allowing a then world record crop in 1999, three years after assuming control of Afghanistan. See figure 1 for yearly production by tons.

"...The Taliban ... were vehemently against was opium."

This was untrue then and remains so-

See thats the argument of simple minds. Who cares what the Taliban were. Is that the bar the US sets for itself? Which btw, the US is having trouble meeting as well, as in 2006 that was crossed as well with a new world record. You guys are screwing up things NOW, don't talk about events 10 years ago.

It pisses me off to know you have installed a drug King pin as the COAS of Afghanistan and the entire parliament is filled with drug lords who own vast poppy fields. People are dying in Pakistan because of the logistical support we're giving you guys and to find out those supply trucks are shipments containing ingredients for the heroine recipe, really pisses us off.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Bane Blade:

Read this article, though slightly dated. It largely confirms the drug and weapons trade picture painted by Craig Murray, and accusations of GoA officials being involved in crime and drugs are not new.

Also explains a little of where all that weaponry used by the Taliban is coming from.

Turning Afghan Heroin Into Kalashnikovs​

Remote Afghan province is home to major trading post for heroin destined for Europe and arms for Taleban and other militants.

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Badakhshan (ARR No. 295, 30-Jun-08)
The bazaar sits on a small island in the river Panj, a narrow expanse of shallow but fast-flowing water that is all that separates the Badakhshan region of Tajikistan from the Afghan province of the same name. On either side loom the Pamir mountains, a range of high peaks that cuts the region off from the rest of the world.

When the bazaar opened about five years ago, the hardy Pamiri people of Tajikistan rejoiced that they would now have contact with people on the Afghan side of the river from whom they had been cut off for decades – by the Soviets, by war, and by ruined economies.

Some boasted happily that Tajikistan would soon be able to share its technical know-how with its Afghan brothers.

That know-how has since flowed both ways, although not as the optimists hoped.

The unprepossessing frontier bazaar squatting on the river Panj has become one of the largest arms-for-drugs trading centres in the world.

In the middle of the river, local mafiosi cut deals that will arm Taleban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, as well as al-Qaeda and other militant groups in the wider region. In return for Russian-made weapons, they trade Afghan heroin that will eventually be sold on the streets of European cities.

The Joint Bazaar, as it is called, covers approximately 2,000 square metres surrounded by concrete walls.

Border police control access to the site, Tajik officers on one side, Afghans on the other.

Inside, local merchants display their wares on hand-woven carpets. Foodstuffs from Tajikistan such as dried mulberries, apples, and almonds compete with offerings from the Afghan side, mostly exotic fruit brought from Pakistan, like mangoes and tangerines.

Colourful Pamir “jurabi”, the thick knitted socks that locals wear in winter, alternate with piles of cheap clothing as the customers haggle over prices.

But the real business here is conducted behind the scenes. From the northern side of the border, smugglers bring in gemstones and weapons to exchange for high-quality Afghan heroin.

Business is booming, according to Mohammad Aslam (not his real name), a trader from Afghanistan.

“My income has doubled these days,” he told IWPR. “On the one hand, we are making money from heroin; on the other, we can take weapons into Afghanistan and make even more money selling them to arms smugglers from the south.”

The bazaar provides the meeting place where contacts are made and deals are struck. But the goods are not stored here – Mohammad Aslam explained that smugglers bring samples of their wares, and then discuss quantity and price.

“After we agree on a deal, we pay some money in advance and meet at a specified time to exchange the rest of the goods,” he said.

The price list is fairly standard, according to the smuggler.

“The automatic weapons that are brought in by the Russians are mostly Kalakovs, which are more expensive than Kalashnikovs,” he said.

“Kalakov” is local parlance for late-model Kalashnikov rifles such as the AK-74, which are more prized than the old AK-47.

“We trade a kilogram of heroin for ten Kalakovs or 15 [old-model] Kalashnikovs,” he said. “After that, we sell them to smugglers from Helmand and Kandahar either for cash or for more heroin.”

The traders do a good business, since the insurgents are willing to pay top dollar for firearms.

“While we exchange a kilo of heroin for ten Kalakovs, the Taleban will give us a kilo for just five or six [guns],” he continued. “Everybody benefits.”

The guns come disassembled for ease of shipping.

“They come in small parts, and that is how we take them into Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Aslam. “When we manage to get one Kalashnikov to the centre of Badakhshan we can sell it for 200 US dollars, but the same gun will fetch 50 per cent more in Jalalabad.”

The arms-for-heroin trade is of course a risky business.

“The location for exchanging large amounts of heroin and weapons is always kept secret,” he said. “If it’s a major deal, we take a lot of armed men with us to guarantee our security. Then we load the merchandise onto donkeys or mules.”

The terrain is so rugged that only the smaller, more nimble animals can negotiate some pathways, which seem to extend directly up the mountainside.

The smugglers do not seem overly worried about police or other law enforcement officials.

Mohammad Aslam’s past includes a stint as a “warlord” in one of Afghanistan’s many armed militias, and he has retained some useful contacts.

“We have armed supporters in the area who are in turn supported by some people in the authorities,” he said. “We also have old friends in the government, and everybody gets a cut of the deal.”

The arms make their way south, and not only to the Taleban.

Standing beside Mohammad Aslam was Mir Alam, all the way from Sorkh Rod district in the southeast Afghan province of Nangarhar. He had just picked up a consignment of weapons and was about to head south in his Russian-made jeep.

“I am just looking for a good customer,” he said. “It isn’t important to us who it is. Most of the Taleban are good customers, but we also take these guns further into Pakistan, to the Landi Kotal market, where we sell them to international arms smugglers.”

From Landi Kotal – located high in the Khyber Pass – the weapons make their way to radical groups all over the world, Mir Alam said, explaining, “Landi Kotal is one of the largest arms markets in the region. The mujaheddin and al-Qaeda purchase weapons for Palestine, Kashmir and other battle fronts.”

As in most businesses, demand drives prices.

“When Arabs come to Pakistan, the price goes up,” said Mir Alam.

Whatever the fluctuations, the trade is immensely lucrative, and is a better earner than simply selling narcotics, because of the high demand for arms.

“The exchange of arms for heroin makes a lot of money – more than we get from heroin smuggling alone,” said Mir Alam. “Each time the weapons are exchanged for heroin, both sides get a profit from both arms and heroin. It’s a good trade. I know people who have luxury palaces in Dubai and other Arab countries thanks to this trade.”

The major profits go to those with the clout to call on adequate protection. “The big smugglers are backed by governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia,” he said. “These smugglers can pay huge amounts of money. But we don’t do badly.”

On the other side of the border, heroin is smuggled further into Tajikistan, and from there through the Central Asian republics to Russian and European markets. The trade generates large profits along its way, although not so much for those who simply ferry it across the Tajik-Afghan border.

“We really don’t make that much money out of this,” said one Tajik smuggler. “Our job is just to get the sacks of heroin across the border, then the Russian mafia come with their vehicles, many of which have police insignia. They take the heroin and give us the guns. Then they take the drugs to Europe.

“All along the way we bribe the police. The Russians do, too, but they have to give money to high-ranking officials. Failing that, it’s impossible.”

In past years, Badakhshan mostly grew, processed and exported its own opium, the raw material of heroin. Now, given the explosion of cultivation in the south, especially in Helmand, and a largely successful eradication process in Badakhshan itself, the northern province has become a clearing-house for drugs from other provinces.

One resident of Ishkashim district of Afghan Badakhshan, speaking on condition of anonymity, was happy to guide a visitor through the process by which raw opium is turned into heroin.

“I have been running a small heroin-processing lab for three years now,” he said. “My brothers and partners, however, are mostly involved in smuggling, because it gives them a lot of income.”

The lab is located underground, and is not exactly hi-tech. It consists of six barrels, a few basins, a press and bags of opium.

“First you pour between 18 and 36 kilos of opium into each barrel and boil it in water for two or three days,” he explained. “Then you press the paste and dry it in the sun. To obtain the white powder, you pour a certain kind of acid on it.”

According to one drug smuggler, a kilo of opium costs between 200 and 300 US dollars here. It takes five to seven kilos of opium to produce one kilo of heroin, which sells for approximately 2,000 dollars at the Panj River market. Once it is safely across the Tajik border, the price goes up to 5,000 dollars.

On the streets of Europe or the United States, of course, the price increases exponentially.

The provincial government of Afghan Badakhshan freely admits that it has little control over the processing and smuggling drugs in Badakhshan. Many parts of this mountainous region are remote and inaccessible, and coupled with the tangled bureaucracy, it is all but impossible to curb the trade.

“Since the borders are administered directly by the Ministry of the Interior, I do not feel responsible,” said provincial governor Abdul Majid. “Badakhshan is like a fortress, and I do not have control over its gatekeeper.”

The governor was able to reduce poppy cultivation by 72 per cent in 2007, taking Badakhshan from being one of the leading producers of opium in Afghanistan to nearly poppy-free status.

But Abdul Majid has not been able to make a dent in the smuggling trade, and also acknowledges that there are heroin labs in Badakhshan.

According to the governor, unless the administrative system is changed and the border police are brought under his control, he will not be able to patrol the smuggling routes.

The laboratories are located in remote areas which cannot be adequately policed, he added.

“Badakhshan is so mountainous that in some places people have to walk for two days just to reach a road,” he said. “These labs are not permanent fixtures; they just consist of a couple of barrels and basins. If the police find out about them, they can easily be moved to another location, so control is a bit difficult.”

General Abdul Rahman Rahman, commander-in-chief of the Afghan border police, also confirmed that organised crime was rife in the north. But he said the authorities were trying to contain the menace by training and equipping the police force.

“While terrorism is the main challenge in the south, the presence of local and international mafia presents another challenge in the north,” he told reporters at a press conference in Mazar-e-Sharif. “Local [militia] commanders are another kind of problem, and they support this mafia in the north.”

He acknowledged that police were not always up to the task of dealing with the drug problem, but insisted the situation was improving.

“Our police are getting training and equipment,” he said. “We will prevent such situations in the future.”

The Tajik police at the border were not quite so forthcoming.

A young officer, standing at the gate of the market, flatly denied that any smuggling was going on.

“No one can do illegal work here,” he told IWPR. “You can see everybody, and they are not exchanging anything except food, clothes and fruit. We are here to maintain security at the bazaar, so that people can work in a safe environment. We want to cement the brotherhood between Afghans and Tajiks.”

Smugglers say it is unlikely that governments in the region can prevent the trafficking of guns and heroin – the scale, and the profits, are simply too big.

“The weapons find their way to Arab countries and the heroin finds its way to Europe, so the entire world is involved in the trade,” said Mohammad Aslam. “The local governments know they can’t do anything to stop it, so they just take their cut. And so do we.

“The people who buy weapons support poppy cultivation. There’s an agreement there, and things are getting better day by day.”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR reporter based in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Turning Afghan Heroin Into Kalashnikovs
------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Kasrkin]

"It pisses me off to know you have installed a drug King pin as the COAS of Afghanistan and the entire parliament is filled with drug lords who own vast poppy fields..."

And don't forget the President's own brother...

 

[S-2]

Asim,

Those are facts that you read from me.

You offer a rant.

You see the numbers and the violence and know that, yes, S-2 is correct. The taliban did use opium as a resource of state when in power and still do.

I offered the best I have and could really care one whit that you refuse to acknowledge that opium is grown most in Afghanistan where the taliban are strongest and the government is weakest.

Please don't lecture about the corruption of foreign officials. You live in a massive glass house whose own legacy of corruption has now left fractures EVERYWHERE.

Thanks.

 

[Awesome]

Asim,

Those are facts that you read from me.

You offer a rant.

You see the numbers and the violence and know that, yes, S-2 is correct. The taliban did use opium as a resource of state when in power and still do.

I offered the best I have and could really care one whit that you refuse to acknowledge that opium is grown most in Afghanistan where the taliban are strongest and the government is weakest.

Please don't lecture about the corruption of foreign officials. You live in a massive glass house whose own legacy of corruption has now left fractures EVERYWHERE.

Thanks.

If you read the article posted above, it argues that the southern region is not suited for opium cultivation. Yet they are growing Opium?

Why the 2006 records? Are you denying there are drug lords in the Afghan parliament as alleged by numerous sources.

Also your argument that the Taliban STILL has a heroine industry running doesn't fly since you're in charge now. How can we believe you that you're not involved and just a helpless bystander? You're responsible for seeing that it ends.

Aren't you spinning everything in your favor? I don't think anyone, not even your British pals, are buying your holier than thou attitude. The good war, or the Good stuff?

Its not a rant. I've not even started ranting and raving. I would want to rant some about how these drugs are being pumped into the Pakistani youth. Where your young folks have to spend 1000 bucks for afew grams of some sophisticated drugs, the Pakistani youth can get it for a few hundred rupees.

Don't shrug responsibility off for assisting the drug trade.

If I would rant, I'd say Americans would do anything for a doobie, even fight a war.

 

[SSGPA1]

Articles or no articles and figures or no figures - Fact is that Afghanistan is the largest opium grower and US is the largest consumer market.

Another fact is that Afghanistan is under control of the US and Allied forces, therefore, it is the responsibility of the US and Allied forces to stop the growth of Opium and transfer of drugs into the US and rest of the world!

We need to see MORE from the US govt. in Afghanistan! Efforts from the US govt. are simply not enough.

Also, is there a DEA representation to counter drug traficking by the CIA??

 

[S-2]

We all know about the tremendous success experienced by the taliban in 2001 just before their downfall. Given that 1999 was a world-record crop and 2000 not far behind, the effort the taliban made over the course of nine months is staggering.

Utterly so.

If opium was not a legacy of the taliban regime and onerously hated, how did the taliban manage a world record before managing a world record for eradicating this crop?

One would think the success displayed in 2001 would have appeared in 1997 given the vehemence with which they supposedly hate this scourge and the vigor shown when finally determined to rid themselves of such. Why not in 1997 instead of 2001. Why a world record in 1999? Why is Helmand today, by itself, producing more opium than the rest of the world combined?

British control is modest. They've been heavily engaged in Musa Qala, Sangin, Lashkar Gar, and Garmsir. Thoroughly consumed in the northern one-third.

No. I'm certain that all evidence points to the fact that the taliban have no compunctions about engaging in the opium and heroin trade. It is a state resource of capital in times of war for them.

Consolidation of control from 1996 to 2000 reflects this fact. They needed the capital to fight and defeat the N.A. Clearly the world community wasn't going to help. Bet the ISI helped them with that opium though. Better than digging into Pakistani accounts to fund taliban operations.

Far better.

So too the current explosion in the one province which the can claim dominating through it's southern two-thirds. We know of the legacy heroin labs established by the ISI and the PRC during the Afghan-Soviet war along the FATA borders.

Do you think they still continue?

Just a few humble thoughts to the real pros...

 

[SSGPA1]

excuses and more bloody excuses ... Fact is that US and Allies have control so it is their responsibility to stop Opium growth in Afghanistan!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

We know of the legacy heroin labs established by the ISI and the PRC during the Afghan-Soviet war along the FATA borders.

While you speculate along these lines, the reports posted above clearly paint the path for this drug trade, labs and weapons through the north, as do they accuse the US propped GoA of enabling this trade.

Something to think about, other than continually casting stones at Pakistan, while the good stuff gets smuggled out behind your backs, literally ...

 

[S-2]

You've slogged that report about ad nauseum.

FACT- HELMAND 103,000 hectares.

SLOG that into your (opium) pipe and smoke it.

Now I don't for a minute believe that opium grown between Garmsir and your border heads north to tajikistan. Nope. Not when it is so incredibly, stupendously easier to avoid Brits, Hazaras, Tajiks, etc... and travel a few tens of kilometers under full taliban protection to the safety of PAKISTAN.

You know...SANCTUARY.

I also don't believe that those Helmand farmers have much choice as to their customers. Not one bit. That's a controlled market and their lives are at stake.

I believe that UNODC says the rest of the whole damned nation excepting Farah, Nimroz, Kandahar, Helmand, and Oruzgan produced 8,000 hectares of opium last year.

That's what I believe.

That tells me that the aforementioned provinces produced 148,000 of 157,000 hectares.

Now if you wish to suggest that Helmand and Kandahar aren't CRITICAL to the taliban's efforts, I'd have to give up, A.M.

You've the ICOS map to see the contacts and severity of violence in Kandahar and Helmand. Can you not see a slight correlation?

Willfully blind if not and I'll rest my case.

Thanks.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

You've slogged that report about ad nauseum.

FACT- HELMAND 103,000 hectares.

SLOG that into your (opium) pipe and smoke it.

Now I don't for a minute believe that opium grown between Garmsir and your border heads north to tajikistan. Nope. Not when it is so incredibly, stupendously easier to avoid Brits, Hazaras, Tajiks, etc... and travel a few tens of kilometers under full taliban protection to the safety of PAKISTAN.

You know...SANCTUARY.

I believe that UNODC says the rest of the whole damned nation excepting Farah, Nimroz, Kandahar, Helmand, and Oruzgan produced 8,000 hectares of opium last year.

That's what I believe.

That tells me that the aforementioned provinces produced 148,000 of 157,000 hectares.

Now if you wish to suggest that Helmand and Kandahar aren't CRITICAL to the taliban's efforts, I'd have to give up, A.M.

You've the ICOS map to see the contacts in Kandahar and Helmand. Can you not see a slight correlation.

Willfully blind if not and I'll rest my case.

Thanks.

Comprehension problems again? See me question where it is grown, though that still is in territory under your jurisdiction?

This is your clusterfck - burn the crops down and no one is sneaking it past your nose and through the north to get weapons and explosives into Pakistan.

That's the plain and simple - its grown in territory under US/NATO control, the weapons are trafficked through territory under US/NATO control.