Posted on 01/03/2005 8:45:22 AM PST by Straight Vermonter
Afghanistan no longer serves as al-Qaeda's home base. Yet, it remains the source of another great evil -- the biggest heroin supply in the world. Since its liberation, Afghanistan's heroin production has gone from 640 tons to 5,000, an increase of almost 800%. Afghanistan now supplies 87% of the world's heroin market, and at least 90% of the heroin abused in Europe.
Unlike al-Qaeda, whose worst attacks killed more than 3,000 Americans, heroin kills millions of people all over the free world every year, and destroys the lives of many others. Yet, the world seems either unable or unwilling to put an end to this scourge. Why? After all, the poppy fields are visible to everybody and the locations of the heroin labs in Afghanistan and Pakistan are well known, as are the drug lords and the smuggling routes.
It is the money, stupid. Afghani President Hamid Karzai explained it recently himself, saying that heroin, which provides 60% of the Afghani GDP, proves to the world that his country is 'not a nation of beggars.' Yet he recognizes that this trade poses even greater dangers than terrorism, and he called on his countrymen to 'do jihad' against narcotics 'as we did jihad against the Russian invasion.'
Needless to say that, with all his good intentions, Karzai cannot fight it alone, nor should he. The huge increase in heroin production occurred under the watchful eyes of the coalition forces in Afghanistan. They claim that they do not wish to destabilize Karzai's government by cutting off the primary source of revenue to the warlords. However, those revenues are also helping to fund the resurrection of the Taliban and al-Qaeda renegades, who, according to Illinois Congressman Mark Steven Kirk, reaped at least $28 million from the heroin trade last year. This money is used not only to strengthen their forces in the region but also to buy protection for Bin Laden.
Yet, the US government decided that the best way to fight the growing heroin trade in Afghanistan is by forming a committee, and a Pakistani-Afghani-US committee which met earlier this month in Kabul issued a statement 'expressing its satisfaction over cooperation between the three countries in the war on drugs.' Considering the tremendous increase in heroin production over just this past year, one can only wonder what it was they were congratulating themselves on.
By now, the evidence that drugs are a major financial lifeline for terrorism is overwhelming. However, neither the US government nor its allies consider it a priority to aggressively target this source of funding.
A relatively simple way to eradicate these drugs already exists in the form of mycoherbicides. According to Dr. David Sands, a scientist who spent years researching these naturally-occurring plant pathogentic fungi as a means of targeting either coca bushes or poppy plants, mycoherbicides do not need to be genetically engineered. They can be taken directly from nature, if the pathogen is effective in controlling the target[ed] weed -- a battery of six tests to verify the safety of the mycoherbicide from the point of toxicity and probable environmental impact 'would cost forty thousand dollars for each fungal strain.' However, instead of developing this method of eradication in the US, the Department of Agriculture handed over ten million dollars to the Department of State, which in turn asked the United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP) to develop mycoherbicides that could be used on the coca but not on the poppy plant. But if the UN's track record on making this world a better place is of any indication, we should not hold our breaths for the development of this relatively simple means of ridding the world of the illegal drug scourge, which would cut off the major financial lifeline to the terrorists.
Rachel Ehrenfeld, PhD is Director of the American Center for Democracy and the author of many publication, the most recent, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed -- And How to Stop It. She's also a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.
We need to fly over and burn it up a bit.
I wonder when most drug users, illegal drugs of any kind, will realize that when they purchase these illegal drugs they are contributing to some kind of terrorism. I tend to think that many do not care, just as long as they get their illegal drugs.
Thanks to the War on Some Drugs, the price of this prolific plant has been inflated to the point where incredible profits can be made from selling it.
They can't even keep drugs out of PRISONS, so I wonder what makes them think they can keep drugs out of society as a whole?
From the Washington Times, May 4th, 1999:
Last year, while State Department officials labeled the KLA a terrorist organization, saying it bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like bin Laden, the department listed the group as an "insurgency" organization in its official reports. The officials charged that the KLA used terrorist tactics to assault Serbian and ethnic Albanian civilians in a campaign to achieve independence.
The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States. Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world.
The documents show heroin and some cocaine is moved over land and sea from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere. The circuit has become known as the "Balkan Route."
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a recent report that drug smuggling organizations composed of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were considered "second only to Turkish gangs as the predominant heroin smugglers along the Balkan Route."
Greek Interpol representatives have called Kosovo's ethnic Albanians "the primary sources of supply for cocaine and heroin in that country."
Thats essentially what the mycoherbicide does.
Including pot smokers who purchase weed grown exclusively in the United States?
What about the culpability of our legislature in pursuing the fruitless War on Drugs, thus increasing the profits that can be gained by the terrorists through drug smuggling?
As long as it doesn't look or smell the same and burns it up, because if poisioned, the bastards would still sell it if they can.
BZZT BZZT BZZT! Junk statistics alert. Millions? Heroin kills MILLIONS?
This is a junkier stat than the one about wife-beating during the Super Bowl.
I'd say the author of this piece is a paid propagandist, trying to save Drug War funding when we could pay for half the OIF budget by ending the Drug War, and we could form up one or two whole infantry divisions made of JBTs.
Of course, the libs blame this heroin traffic on the US's liberation of Afganistan. It's Bush's fault, they whine.
Which would increase your freedom more (and decrease your tax bill): 10,000 dead drug users, or 10,000 dead narcs?
Please explain. The WOsD keeps prices up and profits high, but only for the criminal elements willing to engage in the business. The Drug Warriors ensure this remains the case, and therefore assist the terrorists in keeping the funding pipeline open.
11 posted on 01/03/2005 8:57:14 AM PST by LoneSome Journey
If you can't comprehend it, explanations will do you no good.
Nevermind...
Drill really deep, and tap into a source of cash flow from very deep pockets of petroleum, and the economic need to grow opium poppies will disappear. Afghanistan is a sparse and arid land, with few natural resources. Its greatest virtue is that it is a pathway to somewhere else. There is only so much economic benefit from keeping a flock of sheep, or managing a caravan of camels.
There is a lot of relatively cheap real estate there, but not much water, and no access to the sea. Railroads or pipelines have to go from somewhere to somewhere, and except for some desultory traffic from Pakistan to Iran, there is not all that much bulk trade crossing the country, and no major import-export trade outside the opium trade.
What can we offer the Afghanis that they would willingly give up the growing and transportation of opium?
The Drug War costs north of $30Billion per year.
There are more than 100,000 - some estimates go above 200,000 - armed agents of the federal government, outside of the military, and not under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ. What is that if not an unconstitutional standing army?
Which do you think has a more negative effect on your freedom, drugs, or narcs?
Thanks for saying what had to be said. I couldn't have put it better.
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