Afghan Heroin Soon to be Flooding European Market

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

This year will see a record crop of opium poppies coming out of Afghanistan, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Surprise, surprise.

Before the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, opium was the country's biggest export. But the Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppies in 1997. The initial ban seems to have been fairly ineffectual. Afghanistan is, after all, an extremely poor country, and farmers had a steady and significant source of income in poppies. However, the Taliban instituted yet another ban in 2000, one with "teeth," and the New York Times, and other news sources, reported on the success of that ban six years ago. In the February 7, 2001 edition of the Times, Barbara Crossette reported that

Initial results from a survey of opium-growing areas of Afghanistan in recent days indicate that the Taliban may have succeeded in sharply reducing the annual poppy crop, astonished United Nations narcotics-control officials say.

On May 20, 2001 the same correspondent reported that US officials had termed the Taliban's poppy ban a "success":

The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.

But by October of 2001, after the events of 9/11 and immediately preceding the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, it was clear that poppy cultivation was still going on in Afghanistan, but NOT in areas controlled by the Taliban. Barry Meier, writing in the October 5, 2001 edition of the New York Times reported that

New data collected by the United Nations indicates that most opium grown in Afghanistan this year was in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, a rebel group now being courted by the United States and its Western allies as a means to destabilizing and even toppling the ruling Taliban.

The United Nations study confirmed earlier findings by United Nations officials and United States narcotics experts that opium harvests in areas controlled by the Taliban -- said by the United Nations to be about 90 percent of Afghanistan -- have plummeted after a recent Taliban ban on the growing of opium poppies. Opium is used to produce heroin and other narcotics.

The invasion of Afghanistan at the beginning of the so-called "war on terror" probably spelled the end of the Taliban's opium poppy ban. Tim Golden in the New York Times, October 22, 2001, reported:

A highly successful government ban on the growing of opium poppies in Afghanistan, which had been by far the biggest source of opium in the world, has begun to unravel as the United States presses its war against the ruling Taliban, American and United Nations officials say.

Reports from Afghanistan received last week by the United Nations show that farmers are planting or preparing to plant opium poppies in at least two important growing areas. Recent American intelligence reports also suggest that the year-old ban may be eroding as the military assault continues, United States officials said.

None of this is to defend or excuse the Taliban for its role in the attacks of September 11, 2001, or for its extremist ideology, or for its overall influence in global terrorism. It is just to point something out that I have seen, so that you might see it and think about it too, and that is this: Wherever the US extends its influence in the developing world, drugs seem to follow.

Look at Colombia, our only real "ally" in Latin America. Despite a twenty year, US funded "war on drugs," Colombia (one of the few remaining US allies in Latin America) remains one of the biggest producers of cocaine and traffickers of heroin in the world. Some think the drug war is a facade, a reason to aid the right-wing Colombian government in its on-going guerilla war against the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a communist group who have been blamed for the drug trafficking), because "the notion of a war against drug production is eminently more marketable to U.S. politicians and voters than a post-Cold War crusade against South American Communist guerrillas."

Look at Nicaragua in the 1980s. A CIA inspector general's report, released in January, 1998, confirmed that unnamed CIA authorities had effectively blocked federal investigations of Contra drug trafficking. It also gave evidence of the complicity of William Casey and the Reagan administration by frustrating independent investigations for political reasons (this was also the era of the Iran/Contra "arms for hostages" scandal). The US under Reagan was willing to do just about everything--including tacitly allowing international drug-trafficking and giving support to terrorist insurgencies--to fight communism.

Look at Iraq, which since the US invasion has become a major distribution point for narcotics all over the world.

Now Afghanistan is once again the world's biggest supplier of heroin, and the profits from the sales of opium may be going to a right-wing terror group, the Jundullah, to fund their efforts to kidnap and kill Iranians.

Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?

After Blocking Transmissions of 3 TV Stations, Musharraf Puts Hundreds of Political Activists in Prison

An Update on "The Good Guys"^TM, America's Asian Allies in the (so-called) "War on Terror"

After blocking the transmissions of the three major television stations in Pakistan, unelected coup-leader and dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf has had hundreds of political activists of opposition parties thrown in jail in Punjab province.

Siddiqul Farooq, a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Sharif Nawaz said that authorities have been raiding homes of activists since last night and have arrested many people. He said that he are trying to ascertain how many exactly, but information available points out that it could be nearly a thousand.

The arrests were aimed at preventing party workers from turning out for the suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary's planned June 16 visit to Faisalabad, Farooq said adding "The Government is feeling threatened by the public response to the Chief Justice."

Are you following this? The arrests were not at some protest that turned violent. The arrests took place before any protest or rally even began. These are the "good guys," shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States of America, standing up for democracy and freedom.

What has happened to us?

US Wants to Bar Posada Testifying About CIA Resume in His Upcoming Trial

An Update on "America's Terrorist"^TM

The US Government doesn't want the upcoming trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to draw a lot of attention to the fact that he worked for many years for the CIA.

In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas, state prosecutors claimed Posada Carriles's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency ended more than 30 years ago and that as testimony or questioning about those ties were not relevant to his trial on immigration charges.

Not relevant? Not relevant? Recently declassified CIA documents (viewable here and here) show that the man planned the mid-air bombing of an airliner, killing 76 people, many of them students. How in the world is this not relevant to his trial on immigration charges? And why is he charged only with illegal entry into the United States?

And his tenure as either a CIA operative or associate did not necessarily end in 1976. Even though he was employed as a CIA agent in 1965, he was trained in 1961 (at the School of the Americas) in sabotage and explosives and took part in the CIA-planned and sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. While still a CIA agent, Posada bacame the Chief of Operations of the Venezuelan Intelligences Services. The CIA believed at this time that Posada was trafficking in cocaine, but he remained on the payroll until 1976.

Imprisoned in Venezuela in 1977 for the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, Posada escaped to Chile, where he was again jailed. With help from the Reagan administration-funded -- and ultra right-wing -- Cuban American National Foundation, Posada again escaped and settled in El Salvador. Here he worked on regional programs during the 1980s sponsored by the Reagan administration, including selling arms to Iran in exchange for US hostages, the money going to fund (illegally) the Contra war in Nicaragua.

In 1997, Posada was implicated in a number of bombings of tourist hotels in Havana, and indicated that even though he no longer worked directly for the CIA, benefitted from a "tolerant attitude" on the part of US law enforcement.

Why are we fighting a so-called "war on terror" but refusing to extradite a man who we know to be a terrorist? Why are we rushing to deport immigrants who do essential work in the United States, but refusing to extradite that same man who we know to be a terrorist?

On September 23, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the UN General Assembly and spoke about the so-called "war on terror." Among other things, he said:

“All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.” – President Bush's UN speech, 9/23/03

In training people sabotage and explosice techniques, we are supporting terror. In supporting right-wing death squads, or supporting governments that support right-wing death squads, we are supporting terror. In selling arms to Iran in order to illegally fund a revolutionary army, we are supporting terror. In allowing Luis Posada Carriles to walk the streets free, we are supporting terror. In trying him for illegal entry into the United States, we are supporting terror. In refusing to extradite him to Venezuela to stand trial for variouos crimes he committed there, we are supporting terror.

The Bush administration's so-called "war on terror" is a sham.

IMPEACH!!!

Colombia Prosecutor : US Firms Fund Terror Death Squads

An Update on "The Good Guys"^TM, America's Latin American Allies in the (so-called) "War on Terror"

Mario Iguaran, Colombia's chief prosecutor (equivalent to US Attorney General), is in Washington this week, trying to bring financial supporters of right-wing death squads to justice. The Chiquita Corporation and Alabama coal mining firm Drummond Corporation are just two US firms suspected of funding death right-wing Colombian squads who assassinateleftist rebel supporters, labor officials and organizers, and innocent civilians.

Thousands of Colombians disappeared in the past decade, most victims of right-wing militias that emerged in the 1980s to fight leftist rebel groups.

The paramilitaries quickly evolved into mafias, enriching themselves through cocaine trafficking, theft and extortion in large chunks of the country, particularly the Caribbean coast. Large landowners, politicians and corporations bankrolled the militias to expand their holdings, while police and military officers turned a blind eye.

Recently, there have been allegations that death squads have expanded their mission to include the assassination of labor organizers.

Human rights groups have criticized the killings of trade union officials and violations by Colombia’s armed forces, creating another obstacle to securing Congressional approval of new military aid and the trade agreement, which has already been signed by Mr. Bush and Mr. Uribe. Fifty-eight trade unionists were killed in 2006, up from 40 the previous year, though labor groups say government estimates of the homicides are too low.

Senator Gustavo Petro, a lawmaker and former guerilla fighter who has pushed for investigations of paramilitary groups, says that President Alberto Uribe has aided and abetted right-wing terrorists, that terrorists met on Uribe's ranches to plan murders, and that he has uncovered plans by the Alabama-based Drummond Corporation to assassinate him.

Meanwhile George W. Bush's good friend Uribe is himself in Washington this week, trying to wrest money from Congress amid all the growing allegations of his government's connections to right-wing death squads.

This is our closest ally in Latin America, folks. Colombia is the biggest producer and exporter of Cocaine (including crack cocaine) in the world, and the home to a terrorist army as savage as al Qa'ida.

God help us.