I have yet to meet someone from Afghanistan in Morris, Minneosta. However, I met an Afghan when I went to visit some international students in Concordia State University in Moorhead, MN. This particular student was attending school there and he needed help moving to his small apartment he was staying at. I happened to have a small dorm-sized fridged that I had no place to store after graduating. He didn't really have much furniture or anything in his bear apartment. I ended up donating my fridge to him. Since then, I haven't seen him or met any other individual from this nation.
This country made global news after U.S.'s search for terrorist-Osama bin laden-after 9.11.01. For now, as of 11.30.03, this is what I've collected so far on my knowledge of this nation.
I just watched Rambo III (3.5.04) and Afghanistan was highlighted in this paricular movie series. Rambo had a secret mission to rescue a U.S. P.O.W. captured by the country controlled Russians. The plot was more meaningful this time due to the recent political occupation.
I have a former co-worker and friend of mine who is currently in the U.S. Army stationed here.
Articles: Hicks pleads guilty at Guantanamo
POSTED: 11:11 p.m. EDT, March 26, 2007
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) -- "Australian David Hicks, the first prisoner to face a new U.S. war crimes tribunal, unexpectedly pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of helping al Qaeda fight American troops during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Hicks entered his plea following the first day of hearings in the military tribunals created by Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that President George W. Bush authorized to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.
Hicks, a 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for more than five years, earlier said he would defer entering a plea.
His military lawyer Marine Maj. Michael Mori later told the court that Hicks had changed his mind. Hicks answered "yes, sir," when the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, asked him to confirm the guilty plea.
Hicks had faced life imprisonment if convicted on the charges. Those included supporting terrorism by attending al Qaeda training camps, conducting surveillance on the American embassy in Kabul and fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where he was captured in December 2001. He was sent to Guantanamo a month later.
His guilty plea is likely to mean a more lenient sentence and the judge ordered the prosecutors and defense lawyers to draw up a plea agreement by 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) on Tuesday.
Under a long-standing diplomatic agreement, Hicks will serve his sentence in Australia.
One of his Australian lawyers, David McLeod, had said on Sunday that Hicks was convinced he will not get a fair trial.
"He expected that he would be convicted even if he defends the charges," McLeod told reporters on Sunday.
Hicks, who wore a khaki prison uniform and was unshackled during the hearing, has grown his hair to chest-length and looked far older and chubbier than at his last hearing in 2004.
He had been allowed to meet privately in the court building with his father, Terry Hicks, and sister Stephanie, who were flown to the base by the U.S. military for Monday's hearing.
"He's really changed a lot in three years," said the elder Hicks, who had last seen his son at the 2004 hearing.
Hicks, the first of the 385 Guantanamo prisoners to be charged in what are formally called military commissions, wants only to return to Australia, settle down and see his two children, his father said.
"We will stand by him on anything he decides, whichever way it goes," said his father, who left the base before the guilty plea was announced.
Hicks has said he was sodomized, beaten, and subject to forced injections while in U.S. custody, allegations the military calls untrue and nonsense.
Rights activists and foreign governments have long criticized the prison camp on the eastern tip of Cuba for what they say are abuses of detainees' rights. Washington contends the prison system is necessary to hold foreign suspects captured in the war on terrorism it declared after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Hicks' lawyers and human rights monitors observing the hearings said the tribunals were rigged to ensure convictions and allow evidence obtained through coercion. The tribunals are already the subject of new court challenges.
Hicks is not accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks and Human Rights Watch said he could easily be tried in a regular U.S. court.
But the chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, said the new tribunal rules are fair and "stack up at least equally if not better than any other system on the planet."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
"After soldiers of a US 173rd Airborne company burn the bodies of two Taliban killed near the Pakistan border, members of the army's psychological warfare unit then broadcast an inflammatory message designed to taunt and bait the
enemy.
US soldiers in Afghanistan have taken the tactics of psychological warfare to a grotesque extreme. After soldiers of a US 173rd Airborne company burn the bodies of two Taliban killed near the Pakistan border in a desecration of Muslim burial rituals, members of the army's psychological warfare unit then broadcast an inflammatory message designed to taunt and bait the enemy. A translation offered on camera by Sergeant Jim Baker of "PsyOps" reads: "Attention Taliban. You are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be burned. This just proves you are the ladyboys we always believed you to be." In recent months, the Taliban have launched more attacks that at any time since the invasion. Faced with such a resurgence, the Americans are resorting to psychological warfare to demoralise the enemy. Armored vehicles loaded with loudspeakers blast loud, offensive music into the valleys. But such tactics may also heighten the perception of local people that the Americans are as barbarous as the Taliban."
"In Minnesota, new schools often cost taxpayers millions of dollars. To a village in the Dara Noor District of Afghanistan, the future of their children is measured in thousands of dollars and their firm belief that education is the path to a better life.
The Hindu Kush mountains rise to 16,000 feet across the northeastern part of Afghanistan, and the wind that scours across rugged terrain rarely ceases. The land around the village of Safer Kala is unforgiving, and the difficult struggle to carve a living from the river valley and the land around it seems as unending as the mountains and the wind.
The village elders who gathered in a shaded courtyard on May 12, 2009 all bore signs of the daily struggle to keep livestock and crops watered and families fed on their sun- and wind-roughened skin. But they sat on the benches arranged in orderly rows with quiet pride and fierce determination as their leaders celebrated the opening of the village’s first-ever school for both boys and girls.
An elder who spoke during the ceremony talked about the difference the school would make in the village. "This school is bringing light to the people here and the teachers are giving a bright future to the students. This is making a better life for this village.”
The cluster of simple white buildings erected from blocks and wood includes two school buildings, two restrooms and two wells. A wall separates the school from a nearby road to protect the students from traffic hazards. The government, along with International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and the Nangarhar provincial reconstruction team (PRT), is also funding a flood wall project to protect the school and the village from the nearby river, which suffers from repeated flooding.
The remote location, mountains terrain and poor or non-existant roads made contruction work very difficult for the team. Army 2nd Lt Steve Klenke, a PRT engineer from Detroit, praised the diligence and patience of the villagers, district officials and provincial government throughout the better part of a year that construction required. Now that the school is completed, the PRT will be working on a footbridge over the river so that children from other parts of the valley can attend the school.
Safer Kala is just one of the 21 schools being built by the Nangarhar Provincial government in partnership with the PRT and ISAF. The cost of this one school was $178,000, but to the village and the surrounding area, the buildings are a symbol of a determination to not only survive in this mountainous area, but to once again flourish as a people and as a country.
Information for this article provided by Capt. Dustin Hart, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Dept of Defense and Afghanistan Information Management Services.
Copyright 2009 - KSAX-TV, LLC
A Hubbard Broadcasting Company
"During his address before the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, December 1, expect President Obama to ask the American people to support his sending an additional 34,000 U.S. troops to fight for freedom in Afganistan so that we do not have to fight radical, militiant Islamic terrorism in the American homeland in coming years. He will probably refer to the shootings at Camp Hood allegedly commited by an Islamic military officer and psychiarist with al-Queda connections earlier this month this month to convince us that al-Queda based terrorism constitutes a genuine threat to the safety of Americans, even those living in the homeland.
Obama will probably go on to say that the heroic Amercan military troops fighting for freedom in Afghanistan since shortly after 9/11, have significantly reduced the numbers of al-Queda and Taliban insurgents fighting there and add that, nevertheless, the still pose of significant threat to the security of the people of that nation and so must be eliminated. Furthermore, he will likely add that to honor the American who died fighting there, he intends to finish the job started by President Bush shortly after the 9/11, which is to rid Afghanistan of al-Queda and Taliban fighters and then train Afghanistant troops to defend their own homeland.
That’s sweet Obama rhetoric. Let the violins play. But how does all of it square with the assertions General James Jones, Obama’s national security advisor, made on October 4 concerning the current strength of Taliban and al-Queda forces in Afghanistan and their danger to American troops and that nation’s people? According to an article published that day in the Washington Times, General Jones said that Afghanistan is not imminent danger of falling to the Taliban. Furthermore, he estimated total al-queda presence in Afghanistan at 100, a drop in a bucket.
What Obama will not tell us is that additional troops are needed to guard the opium poppy fields because of record yields now achieved each year and expansion of growing area and that the opium industry there was designed by the United States over thirty years ago.
The opium trade is big business there and worldwide and revenues are comparable with energy industry levels. Professor writes in a 2006 article titled, Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?, published by GlobalResearch.ca, “…what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organized crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking. This relationship has been documented by several studies including the writings of Alfred McCoy.”
What Obama will also not tell us is that the growing presence of the U.S. is all consistent with Zbigniew Brzezinski’s master plan for America’s securing control of Central Asia and Caspian Sea gas and oil producing nations. Brzezinski, elistist master stategist and founder of the Trilateral Commission along with George Soros and David Rockefeller and well as former national security advisor to President Carter, see control of that corridor, which includes the old Silk Route, is the key to control of the world’s commerce. His plan was laid out in masterful detail in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, which may be read free online at Scribd.
The presence of the U.S.military in Afghanistan is pivotal to execution of this plan. Whoever controls Afghanistan controls access to all of the major gas and oil pipelines in this region. It also serves from a logistical standpoint as the perfect staging area for U.S. miliary troop foreays into Pakistan and neighboring countries in Central Asia and into the oil and gas rich Caspian Sea Region.
According to historian and author Webster Tarpley, Brzezinski met Obama when he was a student at Columbia University, became his political mentor and was responsible for Obama’s winning the U.S. presidency. Brzezinski still serves as Obama’s unnamed strategist and advisor. During the 2008 presidential campaign season, Obama’s focus on what he believe was a vital need of the U.S. to switch its military focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. This lends credibility to Tarpley’s contention that Brzezinski is guiding if no specifying Obama policy decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan and, if fact, all of Cenral Asia, South Caucusus and the Caspian basin..."
"Some international contractors, hired by the United States to build roads and other large construction projects in Afghanistan, are paying Taliban insurgents not to attack them and to act as their security guards, according to allegations filed with the Pentagon and other U.S. investigative agencies.
The allegations are part of widening U.S. probes into deals between contractors paid by the U.S. government and the Taliban insurgents against whom American troops are fighting a bloody war.
Among the allegations are accusations by an American security contractor based in eastern Afghanistan that the Taliban are being paid off not to attack certain projects, and the money is being used to buy weapons and explosives.
The construction contractors "get ahold of the local Taliban commander, ask how much will it cost us to get this work done and have you not mess with us, and by the way we'll hire you to do the security,'' the American security contractor told me recently in Gardez, a major city in eastern Afghanistan.
The security contractor asked not to be identified by name to protect himself.
"If I disappear, you guys will have a starting place for an investigation,'' he wrote in an e-mail to investigators for the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, an independent investigative agency chartered by Congress.
That agency turned the allegations over to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, an office within the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General. A senior official at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service did not respond to a request about whether an investigation into the allegations is under way. Gary M. Comerford, a spokesman for DCIS and the Pentagon Inspector General, said the agency does not normally acknowledge when it undertakes an investigation.
If the allegations of payoffs are borne out, they would help explain how the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan have been able to wage a costly war against U.S. troops. Taliban fighters are paid more than Afghan police, in most cases, and the explosives and hardware used in roadside bombs and suicide vests are costly to procure, transport and deploy, U.S. officials said.
Since 2001, the United States has spent $39 billion on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, including work on roads, bridges, dams and power plants. Most of the work is done by large international corporations which, in turn, contract with other international and even local companies. It is not clear in these complex contracts who holds responsibility for ensuring security at work sites.
Despite the massive American presence in Afghanistan of both military and civilian personnel, U.S. officials acknowledge there is insufficient scrutiny of the contractors and the costs they claim for their work, including for security.
In many cases, it is common for contractors on U.S.-funded projects to hire local Afghans for security work. But there are too few inspectors to check up on where the money really goes.
"The problem is their inspectors can't get out to see the [work] sites because of security. There's so much corruption and nobody to investigate it,'' the security contractor said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds many of the development projects in Afghanistan. Its own inspector general, Donald Gambatesa, told the U.S. Commission on Wartime Contracting last spring that "the lack of security imposes significant constraints on USAID's ability to monitor its programs.''
USAID officials, he said, "are unable to make routine site visits, and their official counterparts are often reluctant to be seen meeting with Americans.''
The Commission on Wartime Contracting is an independent, bipartisan group set up by Congress to monitor the growing number of U.S.-funded contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a hearing on Friday in Washington, the commission was told by Kenneth P. Moorefield, assistant Defense Department inspector general for Southwest Asia, that the problem persists and that the Pentagon is short of funds and auditors to keep an eye on contracts.
The contract auditors have "attempted to get ahead of the curve -- there's a need to dig out of a hole,'' he said, but added: "There's a constant struggle over limited resources.''
Separate from allegations about the Taliban and construction security, a House panel last week broadened its investigation into charges that private contractors paid off Taliban insurgents not to attack truck convoys carrying war materiel through Pakistan and into Afghanistan.
"Serious allegations have been brought to the subcommittee's attention that private security providers for U.S. transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security,'' said Rep. John F. Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee.
"If shown to be true, it would mean that the United States is unintentionally engaged in a vast protection racket and, as such, may be indirectly funding the very insurgents we are trying to fight,'' Tierney said.
Tierney's investigators have asked for Pentagon documents relating to a $2.2 billion contract with several trucking companies to carry goods into Afghanistan.
The Taliban-related allegation in eastern Afghanistan involves construction on a strategic road between Gardez and Khost, a route that runs over high mountains and directly through territory dominated by the Haqqani Taliban, one of the most ruthless of several Taliban subgroups.
The security contractor alleged that the Haqqani network, which provides foreign fighters from Pakistan for the security work on the roads, is paid tens of thousands of dollars in what amounts to a protection racket.
The Haqqani network is responsible for IEDs and attacks that have killed dozens of American troops and hundreds of Afghan civilians, according to senior U.S. commanders.
"Haqqani has poured money into Khost,'' Col. Michael Howard, who commands a brigade combat team in the region, told me this fall. "Those IEDs cost a ton of money, those suicide vests, the vehicle-borne IEDs cost thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.''
The security contractor said he had stumbled across the alleged contractor payments to the Taliban, and when he complained to company officials that "the U.S. is not in the business of giving our enemy money to fight us,'' was told that hiring the Taliban was "a necessary evil.''
The security contractor also said the Taliban are paid to tip off trucking contractors when an attack is planned on a convoy, but that the information is not passed on to the U.S. military, whose convoys are hit regularly by IEDs.
"I have yet to find a security company that doesn't rely on payoffs to the Taliban,'' the contractor said."
*see why they are doing contract work=> NEW WORLD ORDER - WORLD OF SLAVES 6 OF 6
"POSTED November 18, 2008 In a corner of the Afghan capital, there's an effort to reach one of the most vulnerable groups in the country- the children."
"POSTED February 8, 2007 The War of Terror has had many causalities in Afghanistan, including civilians. But here soldiers are shown to be using the resources for medical purposed of helping those who need it."
AP sources: Bomber at CIA base was a double agent By PAMELA HESS and ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess And Adam Goldman, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 30 mins ago (Monday, January 3rd of 2010
"
WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian-born terrorist working as a double agent who had been invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official confirmed Monday.
The bombing killed seven CIA employees — four officers and three contracted security guards — and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.
The former senior intelligence official and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence. Zarqa is the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC News first reported the bomber's identity....
Missions
Travel the Road in Afghanistan
"Travel the Road is a reality show on JCTV about two missionaries that travel all over the world preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this episode they are in Afghanistan staying on a military base. They have the opportunity to join US troops as they give aid to surrounding villages and spend time with local nomadic people"
"..Then I explained the message of Jesus and His death on the cross. I lay face down on the ground at the top, laying in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and prayed. I prayed for peace, the blessings of God and love to fill every heart. Also for the salvation of Jesus to be received. I looked each of my helpers in the eye and prayed for them and their families. Tears poured from my eyes. Oh how I love them. They are Muslim men, who helped take the cross to the top. They put their lives in danger, faced death and never complained. These are real men. My brothers! They all wanted individual photos of themselves carrying the cross on top.
I'll never forget what Syed told me when I was thanking him. He said "It's my moral responsibility" I said "What do you mean?" He replied "You are on a mission from God to carry the cross in every nation, it's my 'moral responsibility' to help you accomplish this for God! I gave my word, I would never consider changing it!" What a man. I could only weep. ..
*see GoodnewsEverybody.com Movies: The Passion, Crucification, Easter, Resurrection, etc..
"The Kite Runner is a 2007 film directed by Marc Forster based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini. Though most of the novel is set in Afghanistan, these parts of the movie were mostly shot in Kashgar, China due to the dangers of filming in Afghanistan at the time of the making of the movie.[1] Much of the film's dialogue is in Dari (Afghan Persian) (with English subtitles), and English. Most of the actors involved with the film, including the child actors, are native speakers. Filming wrapped up on December 21, 2006 and the movie was expected to be released on November 2, 2007. However, after concern of the safety of the young actors in the film, its release date has been pushed back six weeks to December 14, 2007." Watch-Movies.net
Osama-movie, on a girl "hiding" amongst a Muslim trained youth-army
Osama - Official Movie Trailer
"Osama (Dari: أسامة) is a 2003 film made in Afghanistan. It tells a story about a young girl who disguises as a boy, Osama, that exposes the cruelty of the Taliban, and was the first film to be shot entirely in that country since 1996, when the Taliban régime banned the creation of all films. The film was an international co-production between companies in Afghanistan, the Netherlands, Japan, Ireland and Iran."
Reviews: Why I reccomend this... from Citizen Warrior
"This is an inspirational video clip of the Afghan Worship song "Qodos" (Holy), produced by Radio Sadaye Zindagi. "
Iranian / Afghani Christian Worship Song by Sedayezindagi
"As you may know Christianity in coutnries like Iran and Afghanistan is forbidden. This is a Farsi / Afghani Christian song of worship ... all » produced by FarsiPraise Ministries, Inc. in 2006. Pass it on to your friends and encourage the persecuted Christians to keep on singing for the Lord"
*see Farsi Praise
"Al Jazeera exclusive spanning the weeks of captivity of South Korean hostages, seen through the eyes of their families. "
Re: Exclusive video of Korean hostages in Afghanistan 30-07-07
Related Sites: U.S. bombs poppy crop to cut Taliban drug ties, updated 3:43 p.m. EDT, Tue July 21, 2009 (CNN.com) "KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday in a dramatic show of force designed to break up the Taliban's connection to heroin.
The air strike occurred mid-day in Helmand province and was observed by CNN's Ivan Watson, who is embedded with the U.S. Marines operating in that province.
The military dropped a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then followed with strikes from helicopters.
Tony Wayne, with the U.S. State Department, said the strikes on poppy seeds, that can be used to make opium and heroin, is part of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs. Video Watch U.S. military bomb poppy seeds »
"There is a nexus that needs to be broken between the insurgents and the drug traffickers," Wayne said. "Also, it is part of winning the hearts and minds of the population because in some cases they are intimidated into growing poppies."
In a bid to encourage Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops the U.S. Agency for International Development has been offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation.
Observers have noticed a significant decline in the opium trade in Afghanistan, with the number of poppy-free provinces increasing from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008, according to a U.N. report released last year.
Opium cultivation in the country, which has 34 provinces, dropped by about 20 percent in a year, the U.N. reported in August.
"It's a challenge to deliver assistance in a war zone -- you can hear fighter jets flying above us right now," said Rory Donohoe, a USAID development officer.
"At the end of the day, what we found is successful is that we work in areas that we can work," he told CNN in a recent interview in Helmand province.
"We come to places like this demonstration farm where Afghans can come here to a safe environment, get training, pick up seeds and fertilizer, then go back to districts of their own." Video Watch Afghans speak about the change in their farming practices »
Many of Afghanistan's northern and eastern provinces have already benefited from USAID alternative farming programs, which have doled out more than $22 million to nearly 210,000 Afghans to build or repair 435 miles (700 kilometers) of roads and some 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers) of irrigation and drainage canals.
Giving Afghan farmers improved access to markets and improved irrigation is successfully weaning them away from poppy production, according to officials at USAID.
Over the years, opium and heroin -- both derivatives of the poppy -- have served as a major source of revenue for the insurgency, most notably the Taliban movement that once ruled Afghanistan.
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"If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way, the fighting will go away," said Abdul Qadir, a farmer in Lashkar Gah.
"The Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear." "
"A bombshell article in today’s edition of the New York Times lifts the lid on how the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a suspected kingpin of the country’s booming opium trade, has been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years. However, the article serves as little more than a whitewash because it fails to address the fact that one of the primary reasons behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the agenda to reinstate the Golden Crescent drug trade.
“The agency pays (Ahmed Wali) Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home,” reports the Times.
An October 2008 report from the Times reveals how, after security forces discovered a huge tractor-trailer full of heroin outside Kandahar in 2004, “Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs.”
In 2006, following the discovery of another cache of heroin, “United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai.”
The Times article out today also discusses how the CIA uses Karzai as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban. He is also directly implicated in the manufacturing of phony ballots and polling stations that were attributed to the President’s disputed election victory.
“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”
Officials quoted by The Times described Karzai as a Mafia-like figure who expanded his influence over the drug trade with the aid of U.S. efforts to eliminate his competitors.
The Afghan opium trade has exploded since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, following a lull after the Taliban had imposed a crackdown. According to the U.N., the drug trade is now worth $65 billion. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, with the equivalent of 3,500 tonnes leaving the country each year. Other figures put the number far higher, at around 6,100 tonnes a year.
The New York Times exposé pins the blame on Karzai, but fails to explain that one of the primary reasons behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the United States’ agenda to restore, not eradicate, the drug trade.
Before the invasion, the Taliban collaborated closely with the U.N. to reduce opium production down to just 185 tonnes, a figure at least 2000% below current levels. The notion that the “Taliban benefits from the drug trade” and that the U.S. is trying to stop it, as both Bush and Obama claimed, is the complete opposite of what is actually happening.
As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has highlighted in a series of essays, the explosion of opium production after the invasion was about the CIA’s drive to restore the lucrative Golden Crescent opium trade that was in place during the time when the Agency were funding the Mujahideen rebels to fight the Soviets, and flood the streets of America and Britain with cheap heroin, destroying lives while making obscene profits.
The Times implies that the drug lord Karzai being on the CIA payroll is little more than an embarrassing coincidence, when in reality he is just a middle manager for the U.S. military-industrial complex’s control of the drug trade in Afghanistan which stretches back decades and was only interrupted when the Taliban came to power.
"Heroin is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow. One of the “hidden” objectives of the war was precisely to restore the CIA sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes,” writes Chossudovsky.
"As revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, CIA covert operations in support of the Afghan Mujahideen had been funded through the laundering of drug money. “Dirty money” was recycled –through a number of banking institutions (in the Middle East) as well as through anonymous CIA shell companies–, into “covert money,” used to finance various insurgent groups during the Soviet-Afghan war, and its aftermath."
Within two years of the CIA’s covert operation in Afghanistan, “CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.”
This is the history of the Afghan opium trade that the Times won’t tell you, and in failing to do so today’s article serves only to whitewash the true scale of the agenda behind the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan."
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