US plans war on al-Qaida's Afghan opium

[ze_dscherman]

American forces in Afghanistan are planning an offensive against the next opium crop, predicted to be the country's biggest ever, after calculating that drugs are now al-Qaida's main source of income.
A senior American official in Kabul told the Guardian that current British efforts to temper Afghanistan's opium output had had "absolutely no impact" on the amount of opium produced since the fall of the Taliban two years ago.

According to separate reports by the UN and the CIA, about 3,600 tonnes of opium resin were produced this year in an unprecedented 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. The crop earned the country's poppy farmers and traffickers some £2bn.

SNIP

Few analysts dispute that Afghanistan needs more forthright measures to counter its opium explosion. Yet a blanket eradication scheme would risk beggaring thousands of farmers like Mr Nayamatullah - to America's cost. "The Taliban are operating in the south-east because they have support there," said ICG's Mr Parekh. "By destroying opium crops without offering any economic support, America could end up turning virtually the entire population against it."

It would be better, Mr Parekh said, to start with Afghanistan's rather more powerful drug barons. "There are members of the government and their family deeply involved in the drug business. Everyone knows who they are, and that goes right up to cabinet level. Prosecute them, take out the big fish. That way you'd solve a lot of this country's other problems too."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1091811,00.html

[Loonman]

1. Again?

:shrug:

[htuttle]

2. "Al Queda's" Opium?

Hmm...I suppose General Dostum's opium is safe, then...

[IndianaGreen]

11. I was going to say, that's Dostum's opium

I have no clue what the hell the Bush regime is planning to do in Afghanistan, but I can guarantee that it will backfire.

[LeftHander]

3. What CIA losing control of the Heroin?

They must not be meeting produciton quotas...

[Barrett808]

10. Yes, warlord opium will be protected n/t

n/t

[BuckeFushe]

4. Shades of 1974, paraquat spraying in Mexico

they took away the pot, and the country turned to cocaine. They tried it in Peru and Columbia and the population is at war with their governments. Looks like we can expect to be driven out of Afghanistan any day now. You can't grow anything there except opium poppies, who will subsidize the farmers? Oops, I know the answer, another gazillion dollars for 'rebuilding'.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

5. the only way to take these profits from terrorists

is to legalize across the board. That will never happen though, so our policy of prohibition ensures the profits of future terrorists.

[Catholic Sensation]

9. now explain one benefit to this country of

legalization of heroine, crack, blow, angeldust, and opium. Please someone enlighten me to the social, health, and economic benefits of hard narcotic legalization.

[reprobate]

17. One benefit? How about 2 million non-violent prisoners.

The largest percentage of population in prison in the industrialized world.

Entire generations of young black males imprisoned, on parole, or probation. Mostly for non-violent possession.

The dangers of drugs are well known to most, but the gov't, in it's usual manner of lies and exaggerations, has confused most.

Five times as many people die from adverse reactions to legal prescription drugs as die from ALL illegal drugs. This is the gov'ts own figures, published last year in Consumer Reports.

Drug treatment programs are far more effective in lowering drug use as is imprisonment. The figures I've heard are five to seven times more effective.

The one big impediment to legalizing drugs and starting an effective treatment regime is the whole industry of the drug war. They have far too much power and will never allow the legislature to curtail that power.

In the entire history of human life on this planet, NO ONE HAS EVER DIED from marijuana overdose. They've caught up on a lot of sleep tho.

[truthspeaker]

6. about a year too late for that, isn't it?

The jump in opium production following the removal of the Taliban was predictable; hell it was inevitable. This should have been part of the pre-Afghanistan war planning.

[Racenut20]

7. Taliban never let them grow it.

[ze_dscherman]

13. No. They curbed it after UN pressure

The Taliban banned opim production in 2000, severely curbing the 2001 harvest, giving in to UN pressure. Before, opium production had risen under Taliban rule.

I guess the opium ban really angered the local warlords/opium lords. American money easily bought their alliance in the war that drove out the spoil-sport Taliban.

On edit added:

Some links that show that the problem was known as early as 2001:

http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/11/11262001/ap_poppies_45669.asp

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/11/26/world/main319016.shtml

Looks like controlling opium production has become an issue only now that the Taliban have seized control of the major production areas ...

[Racenut20]

8. Taliban never let them grow it.

[TXvote]

12. You Must Be High

because the US/British joint task force on poppy abatement in Afghanistan has been working in this exact issue for over two years now. They PAID the farmers not to grow poppies. In fact, I am sure they must be using some of that high tech satellite imaging to find bright red flowers on flat desert plains since poppies are so hard to spot. NO way would the US EVER pretend to be fighting a war on drugs or profiting from allowing the production and sale of drugs. Not after Iran Contra proved that CIA and drug dealing don't mix and America just won't stand for feds dealing drugs. I mean, just because this bumper crop is worth billions of free floating dollars and will distract Europe with junkie issues, they could never be so evil as to CONDONE herion. I mean, ok, coke is out of vogue and they never could jack the price up high enough to fund the war on terror, no matter how many tons of defoliant they drop in Columbia. Just because they have all those helicopters and planes in Afghanistan and never dropped an ounce of defoliant on the crop that JUST harvested doesn't mean that two years of planning has been a farce.

I mean, really, who could believe that BiffCo would actually take over a country, mass farm the most potent and addictive drug besides crack, and then confiscate the profits when the money comes rolling in.

Ok, I feel much better now. I'm gonna go see if I can find some of that reduced price high quality American heroin now to distract me from politics...... n/t

Peace,
Teresa
www.votervirgin.com

[Nihil]

14. Guess that makes it official then ...

... Afghanistan is just another turf war between rival drug gangs ...

The sad thing is that the "hard men" of the encroaching gang is made
up of people who volunteered to defend their own country (as opposed
to the leadership who simply want to profit off the misery of others).

Nihil

[SHRED]

15. Sending the troops to die...

....for oil and poppys. Damn it!!

Lick Bush in 2004!!!

[Zhade]

16. That's gotta be a typo.

I think they meant "US plans to harvest al-Qaida's Afghan opium".

[Whoa_Nelly]

20. So that's what the US $43m to the Taliban was for...

How Much Were Bush and Cheney Involved?

<snip>
May, 17, 2001: The U.S. indirectly gives $43 million to Afghanistan's Taliban government as a reward for its efforts to stamp out opium-poppy cultivation
http://www.alternet.org/letters_ed.html?BulletinID=13

Indirectly?? Yeah, yeah...great foresight...sure...</sarcasm>

[mikeytherat]

18. And where have I heard this before?

"Corpulent Generals, safe behind lines,
history's lessons drowned in red wine.
Poppies for soldiers, death's bitter trade...
all for our children's crusade."

Sting -- Childrens' Crusade (1985)

mikey_the_rat

[MetaTrope]

19. Break out the napalm!

If we haven't used up all our stockpiles on Baghdad already...

[BlackFrancis]

21. Why don't we just buy the shit?

There are a million legitimate medical uses for it. Everyone winds up happy and it would probably cost a fraction of what it would cost to bomb the bejeezus out of the place and take food off the table of some Afghani farmer who will have little else to do at that point but pick back up his AK and try and off the Drug Warriors.

[R Hickey]

22. If we bought the crop, and destroyed it, the next year, they'd grow more.

It seemes that year after year, those poppy farmers would just grow bigger and bigger crops. If the government bought the crop, the addict's demand would still be out there, forcing the price up until that demand is met. So black market prices would tend to rise. Those farmers after a few years might get pretty prosperous, and develop large financial appetites.

The components of the opium trade are all interwoven. You have the supply side, the demand driven side, and the government regulation side. Its hard to tell which came first, the can or the worms.

If governments buy the crop, then in order to control demand on the other end, it stands to reason that governments would have to sell it, too. Right now the big drug companies are selling all the synthetic opium pain killers they can, so its hard to tell what they'll do.

Perhaps soon religion will no longer be the opium of the people...opium will be the opium of the people.

[opihimoimoi]

23. A New Wave of BAD LUCK Descends on AMERICA

Now we gonna get the opium crop too. We so bad we don even know it

[BlackFrancis]

25. it could be used as a band-aid..

These guys aren't getting Colombian druglord style rich off growing Poppy. They probably aren't making that much more than other cash crops. The real money starts coming in at the distribution levels. Buy it until you can get a real agricultural system in place there. :shrug:

[SOS]

24. In 1970 Nixon launched the War on Drugs

33 yearsand hundreds of billions of dollars later, heroin is more potent than ever, cheaper than ever and more plentiful than ever.
But surely this Afghanistan operation will change that! :eyes: