Easy Drug Rehabilitation

By Michael Webster: Investigative

 Reporter Aug 25, 2008 at 12:30 PM PDT

The U.S. alliance with Afghanistan and Pakistan has brought huge revenues to drug formers, drug dealers, insurgences and terrorist in the entire region.

According to news reports in the past financial connections between Bush Republicans and Osama bin Laden go way back and the political and economic connections have remained unbroken for 25 years. And what appears to be a “new” alliance with Pakistan is merely a new manifestation of a decades-long partnership in the drug trade.

As reported last year in the Laguna Journal, the drugs raised in Afghanistan finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are sold. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror, not only in Afghanistan but around the world. Most of these same terrorist drug organizations that fuel the terror network also help to fund the current Taliban attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Part of this illicit cash provides operating capital for international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and others. Much of those profits also line the pockets of corrupt government officials in both countries.

 Google or click on: Global Terrorist And Drug Trafficking Cartels

Drug czar John Walters has acknowledged that “the struggle between narco-trafficking has to be linked with the fight against terrorism” because “drug-trafficking groups contribute to the financing of corruption and terrorism.”

The Mexican drug cartels now believed to be working with international terrorist is the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States.

These new combined international drug trafficking organizations are complex organizations with highly defined command-and-control structures that produce, transport, and/or distribute large quantities of Afghanistan illicit drugs to U.S. cities.

Along with forecasting another near-record opium harvest in Afghanistan this year, the United Nations says that cultivation of cannabis, or marijuana, is also on the rise.

Afghanistan was already one of the world’s leading marijuana producers, and farmers in 2007 are estimated to have expanded their cannabis crops by almost 30 percent over 2006. In  the United Nations Office on drugs and crime warns that even more marijuana will likely be grown in 2008.

Meanwhile, the opium news remains grim. While opium production in 2008 might decline slightly from 2007′s records levels, the output continues to rise steeply in the southern provinces, which account for 69 percent of the country’s total crop. Most of the heroin made from Afghanistan’s opium poppies eventually makes it way to Europe and the western hemisphere, and is fueling the rise in heroin addiction worldwide.  

AP reported just today that over 1.2 tons of opium was seized in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry says its troops have confiscated 1.3 tons of opium in southern Afghanistan. In the statement the ministry said its counter-narcotics force seized the drugs during a raid in Marjah district of Helmand province last week. Three smugglers were detained.

Helmand is the world’s largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in the production of heroin. Afghanistan last year accounted for 93 percent of the world’s opium supply. In 2007 it produced 9,920 tons of opium.

According to Maseh Zarif for Diplomatic Courier points out that “legal prosecution of narcotic traffickers in both countries is wholly dependent on competent judicial systems including incorruptible police, lawyers, and judges.”  The amount of drug cash flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks was estimated to be around $250-$300 billion a year. The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations.

Critic’s of both of the Bush administrations claim that the U.S., may have directly or indirectly, helped to fund the WTC attacks. George Bush, Sr. was in charge of all U.S. intelligence and narcotics operations from 1981 through 1989. It was Bush (the elder) who directly nourished and nurtured bin Laden’s evolution.

The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan last month spoke of criminal networks that maneuver for the release of drug trafficking suspects from pre-trial detention with a single cell phone call. With a process that painless, it is not difficult to assume that these are the same networks with political connections up to the highest level of government in Kabul.

 

According to the State Department’s former coordinator for counter-narcotic strategy in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai instructed the attorney general to refrain from prosecuting senior government officials accused of corruption, and in some cases collusion in the drug trade, “for political reasons.”

 

Recent developments give hope to the prospect of cooperation in combating the flow of narcotics across Asia and the Middle East. Coalition warships in the Arabian Gulf, consisting of the US and British navies, seized over 30 tons of narcotics in the past few months according to a recent US Navy statement. In the United Arab Emirates this week, police seized nearly US$11 million worth of heroin and arrested 19 Afghan suspects in connection with the seizure. Even the military dictatorship regime in Burma got into the act, claiming the arrest of over 300 traffickers and multiple opium seizures during the month of July.

European nations with diplomatic contact in Tehran, some whose troops in NATO are fighting the very same Taliban financed in part by the drug trade, would do well to openly raise their concerns over regional narcotic trafficking with the Iranians. Another immediate neighbor, Pakistan, also needs to take ownership of its complicity in the regional drug trade. As a Brookings Institution senior expert on the Middle East and South Asia recently noted, “If 90 percent of the world’s heroin is grown in Afghanistan, almost all of it is shipped through the Port of Karachi.”

US pressure on Pakistan to chase drug trafficking within its borders and on its shores is imperative. The billions of dollars being wired through the US Defense Department to the government in Islamabad for anti-terrorist assistance can be leveraged for greater cooperation on this front.

 

The Taliban and affiliated insurgents, who roam freely in the tribal border areas in western Pakistan, directly profit from the opium trade. These groups may be able to eventually recover from the financial repercussions of a disrupted drug trade, but it would nonetheless knock them off balance and debilitate their ability to readily procure the resources necessary to inflict the kind of damage witnessed at the Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul or the recent bridge bombing in Peshawar. Indeed, Pakistan must remain an ally and conducive to US interests in the region.

However, a little tough love diplomacy with Islamabad in the context of counter-narcotic strategy is warranted under the circumstances.

For Related articles by Michael Webster click on or Google: www.lagunajournal.com  

Sources:

U.S. State Department

Drug czar John Walters

DEA

United Nations

Maseh Zarif for Diplomatic Courier

Brookings Institution

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry

US Defense Department

AP

Indian Embassy

 

By Michael Webster Syndicated Investigative Reporter. May 24, 2009 at 6:00 AM PST

 

 

Opium trafficking provides the Taliban and other terrorist groups with much of their income

 

 

The combined forces of the NATO and Afghanistan-led military forces seized 92 tons of opium poppy seeds and other drugs, “severely disrupting” a key narcotics center and command base of the insurgency.

 

The operation in Helmand province Friday, ended overnight when precision air strikes obliterated the drugs. The area was emptied of civilians overnight on Friday, before precision airstrikes were launched, the statement said.

Masses of heroin-processing chemicals and bomb-making materials collected in the sweep of Marja, southwest of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, were also destroyed by the air strikes according to U.S. military.

“A total of 60 militants were eliminated as they mounted an ineffective and uncoordinated defense against friendly forces,” a joint US and Afghan military statement said, issuing a final tally for the whole operation.

The international and Afghan forces then seized the poppy seeds, along with tar opium, processed morphine, heroin and hashish The statement said the troops had “seized the single-largest drug cache by Afghan-led forces in Afghanistan to date”.

Helmand, where thousands of NATO military forces helped Afghanistan troops, is the main producer of Afghan opium, which accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world’s supply.

 

Most of it is turned into heroin and smuggled to markets in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The vast province is a known stronghold for the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency.

The US military also said that a large amount of weapons and bomb-making equipment was seized during the operation.

The operation had confirmed that Marja was a “hub of multiple types of militant and criminal activity”, the statement said.

“The four-day operation severely disrupted one of the key militant and criminal operations and narcotics hubs in southern Afghanistan,” US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian said.

 Afghan and international officials say the Taliban earn millions of dollars a year from the drugs trade.

 

There is a connection between Middle East terrorists and the drug trade dates back more than two decades, when the United States and pro-Western governments opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. At that time the focus was on training and equipping fierce mujahideen fighters to resist communist occupation forces, but the means to that end were often the same drug money. Today it is the same thing but growing. The drugs raised in Afghanistan finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are sold. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror not only in Afghanistan but around the world. Most of these same terrorist drug organizations that fuel the terror network also help to fund the Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Part of this illicit cash provides operating capital for international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and others.

 

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzal brother is believed by the U.S. Government to be a major player in growing, processing and trafficking Afghanistan drugs worldwide.

 

Afghanistan produces over 80 percent of the world’s opium supply and 90 percent of the opiate products that are not used in Afghanistan are destined for Europe and smaller amounts to the US. Unlike their counterparts in Colombia, the terrorists in Afghanistan enjoy the benefits of a trafficker-driven economy that lacks a national government who has any interest in combating it.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzal recently at a news conference said,  “all, drug production and trafficking goes hand in hand with terrorism, the money that’s created from drugs feeds terrorism in Afghanistan and the rest of the world”.
  
US Drug Enforcement Administration DEA intelligence confirms the presence of a major linkage between the Taliban and international terrorist Osama Bin Laden.  Bin Laden is believed to also be involved in the drug trade. The dangerous sanctuary in Pakistan enjoyed by al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists is based on the Taliban’s support for the drug trade, which also is a primary source of income for corrupted government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Credible DEA source information indicates both countries’ intelligent agencies are corrupted and benefit directly from the profitable drug trade globally. It is common knowledge that in addition to the Taliban reaping large amounts of cash from drug trafficking, they have for years directly taxed and derived financial benefits that way from the opium trade as well.

 

Former U.S. Drug czar John Walters has acknowledged that “the struggle between narco-trafficking has to be linked with the fight against terrorism” because “drug-trafficking groups contribute to the financing of corruption and terrorism.”

 

Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country. DEA has seen no decrease in availability, and no increase in the price of Southwest Asian Heroin in the United States and European consumer countries. This indicates that significant amounts of opiates still remain available and are plentiful in the supply pipeline. According to the United Nations, up to 60% of Afghanistan’s opium crop is stored for future sales.  

 

The Columbian and Mexican drug cartels now believed to be working with international terrorist is the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States.

 

The U.S. indicates an increase in worldwide demand for heroin, and the resulting profitability of poppy growing in the regions of the world where terrorist organizations most flourish. U.S. and other forces have been in Afghanistan for several years — despite having ousted the ruling Taliban government, which support al-Qaeda terrorists. Fighting an ongoing guerrilla war against supporters of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in hopes of creating a stable government in Kabul and the country in general is proving to be slim. The insurgency is well entranced and taking new territory and holding it against NATO and Afghanistan forces.

 

The illegal drug market is one of the most profitable in the world. It is extremely difficult to know the global value of the drug trade since it is a business that is illegal, underground, and hard to trace. The United Nations Drug Control Program estimates that it is worth $400 billion per year, equivalent to 8% of world trade. In the United States, alone, the drug trade is worth upwards of $100 billion per year. It is now close to 20 years since the U.S. government has been fighting the “War On Drugs,” but despite the billions of dollars spent, an enormous amount of drugs continues to flow into the country. And now even more drugs coming in from Afghanistan.

 

However, with poppy sales on the rise in Afghanistan local warlords whose allegiance rests comfortably with anti-U.S. factions and those whose loyalty is up for sale can be counted on to continue cultivating this highly coveted crop to raise money for local armies fighting to expel American and allied troops from Afghanistan.

More heroin production will mean that more drugs will be sold on American streets by the kinds of characters who would do business with terrorists. Street crime and corruption will certainly be a booming industry in the next few years. The selling of these drugs threatens NATO and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It means unfortunately more body bags coming home from the frontlines.

 

Sources:

U.S. State Department

Drug czar John Walters

DEA

United Nations

Maseh Zarif for Diplomatic Courier

Brookings Institution

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry

US Defense Department

AP

Indian Embassy

Related articles go to: www.lagunajournal.com