Why would US Transform Afghanistan into a Drug Empire?

For a total of sixteen years the US has been occupying Afghanistan after invading immediately after the 9/11 attacks. This act of aggression has already become the longest war in American history, overtaking the “record” that was held by the Vietnam War that lasted from 1964 to 1975. During this period, Washington would spend over 800 billion dollars on the so-called reconstruction of the Afghan nation. As a result of this “reconstruction”, the Taliban has been regaining control over the country, which has resulted in this group controlling over 40% of Afghan territory. Additionally, opium production rates have overtaken the figures of 2001, as the Pentagon does nothing to combat drug trafficking.

It’s curious that according to the Al-Jazeera the estimated value of opium and its by-products produced in Afghanistan in 2016 reached 3.02 billion dollars up from 1.56 billion dollars in 2015. According to UN estimates, drug trafficking accounts for 15% of the Afghan economy, with every tenth person in the country being a drug addict! In comparison, the global average resides at the level of every twentieth citizen.

According to the experts engaged in fighting Afghan drug trafficking, an Afghan farmer would receive 600 dollars for eleven pounds of opium. However, a pound of heroin, produced from this amount would be sold for over 150 thousand dollars on the black market! At the same time, no one knows where in who’s pockets the missing 149 thousand dollars would go.

Under these conditions, what can be said about the forces of the United States who have allegedly been “protecting the country from the forces of international terrorism?”? How could local drug lords produce 6400 tons of opium in 2014 alone with a formidable force being deployed by NATO?

Once Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the country began producing up to 95% of all heroin on the black market. At the same time, Washington under various pretexts refuses to fight drug production.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996, they would mercilessly destroy opium poppy plantations and shot drug traffickers on sight. But once NATO pushed them to the southern provinces of the country in 2001, they were no longer able to resist the idea of receiving funds for their jihad from a such a lucrative business as drug trafficking. Now it is difficult to say how much resources received from the drug are being used for weapons purchases and other military needs of the Taliban or those cash flows are just being abused by local warlords, who have been transformed from fanatical radicals into ordinary drug dealers.

Today it is clear to pretty much everyone that Washington’s anti-drug campaign in Afghanistan has failed miserably in spite of the 8.5 billion dollars wasted on this conflict. According to expert, this year the level of drug production would be skyrocketing to unprecedented highs . The number of drug villages in Afghanistan have already exceeded last year’s figures, with about a third of the population being involved in the cultivation of opium poppy. Predictably, the number of drug trafficking operations keeps growing, as there’s new smuggling routes appearing , for instance, across Africa. Analysts say that both the “Balkan” route (Pakistan-Iran-Turkey-Europe) and new trails across Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine are being used heavily to get Europe drown in narcotics.

At the same time, tons of precursors for the manufacture of narcotic substances are illegally imported into Afghanistan annually. A total 66 tons of such chemicals was seized in 2016, while over 50 tons were confiscated in the first six months of this year alone! Moreover, according to reports presented in Afghan sources, such countries as Italy, France and the Netherlands are among the main suppliers of those suppliers.

That is why one cannot help but be amazed by the disability of the US and NATO forces, despite their continuous presence in Afghanistan, to provide an ample support to the government of the country in the fight against drug production, which remains one of main sources of financing of terrorism, the fight against which, according to official statements, is Washington’s primarily goal in Afghanistan. According to UN estimates, about half of the revenues of illegal armed groups in Afghanistan, estimated at the level of 400 million dollars, are coming from the drug trade. Under these circumstances, the recommendations drafted by the US Special Inspector General for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan on the need to develop of a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in Afghanistan is getting increasingly relevant. John Sopko’s remarks about the 8.5 billion dollars wasted on the anti-drug campaign in Afghanistan shows its utter failure, as the drug production levels in Afghanistan are breaking records, and the country remains the world’s largest producer and exporter of opium.

The organization SIGAR, created to control the funds allocated for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, submitted a report according to which the US spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support the Afghan government. At the same time it is clear to pretty much everyone that the longest war in US history can not be won without a comprehensive plan to fight drug trafficking. After 16 years of bloodshed Afghanistan still accounts for 75% of the world’s heroin supplies, and remains to this very date a country with the highest concentration of terrorist groups in the region.

The Nangarhar Province has virtually become a black market hub for all sorts of terrorists and drug traffickers. There is a very close relationship between heroin traffickers and terrorist groups, as drug traffickers surrender a part of their proceeds from the sale of drugs to the Taliban as a “zakat” – an obligatory donation, which is one of the five pillars of Islam.

As long as the US remains reluctant to address this problem, Trump will not be able to fulfill his promise to win. So why would Washington transform Afghanistan into a drug empire?

First of all, hardly anyone today will doubt that it is the drug trade that allows the US and NATO to control the population of this country, as well as local leaders. Why counter fight the North Atlantic Alliance troops, if they provide an opportunity to have a stable source income, no matter how illegal? The degree of involvement of Afghan peasants in the production of drugs is eloquently evidenced by the fact that peasants are getting loans to cultivate poppy crops.

It should also be remembered that drug trafficking is a powerful instrument for influencing Europe, as well as Central Asian countries, by creating a problem of drug dependence among their population, as well as creating the ground for financial nourishment of criminal groups that are advantageous to pro-Washington opposition groups. By concentrating their efforts on the struggle with internal challenges, these states will be economically and socially weakened, thus reducing their activities on the international arena, giving Washington to rule the world uncontested.

Finally, there is a clear financial link between the Afghan drug lords and the Alliance troops. Transportation, patronage and ensuring the safety of drug production is often carried out by the forces of American weapons and American means of transportation.

In 2006, the United States adopted a federal law on the fight against drug trafficking, which made it illegal to participate in the drug trade in order to provide material support to terrorist organizations and individuals involved in terrorist activities. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, about 37% of all terrorist groups are related in one way or another to drug trafficking.

According to the report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in 2016, two-thirds of the world’s land used for the cultivation of opium poppy can be found in Afghanistan. In 2015, Afghanistan produced 77% of all world’s heroin. The purest injectable heroin that smugglers call “spin mal” that is being produced in the Nangarhar Province can be found all across the world, including the United States. And from here it is not difficult to understand who benefits from this drug trafficking.

So for some Aghanistan is a source of terror and death, while for others – a convenient opportunity for additional enrichment by engaging in the lucrative drug business.

Therefore, while the NATO countries and, in particular, the United States will have financial and political interests in the region, the problem of drug production in Afghanistan will remain one of the most important problems on the international stage.

Originally published on 2017-10-22

About the author: Valeriy Kulikov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

Source: New Eastern Outlook

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

READ MORE!

Libya: Ten Things about Gaddafi They don’t want You to Know

What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya may disagree but we want you to decide. For 41 years until his demise in October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi did some truly amazing things for his country and repeatedly tried to unite and empower the whole of Africa. So despite what you’ve heard on the radio, seen in the media or on the TV, Gaddafi did some powerful things that are not characteristic of a “vicious dictator” as portrayed by the western media. Here are ten things Gaddafi did for Libya that you may not know about… 1. In Libya a home is ...

Trump the Great

If Trump can defeat the oligarchy and save America, he can go down in history as Trump the Great. Liberals, progressives, and the left-wing (to the extent that one still exists) are aligning with the corrupt oligarchy against president-elect Trump and the American people. They are busy at work trying to generate hysteria over Trump’s “authoritarian personality and followers.” In other words, the message is: here come the fascists. Liberals and progressives wailed and whined about “an all white male cabinet,” only to be made fools by Trump’s appointment of a black male and two women, one a minority and one a Trump ...

Towards the Creation of a “Greater Albania”: Historical Roots & Imperial Ambitions

Introduction Today it is quite obvious that Western-backed process of creation of a Greater Albania is not any propaganda myth but rather visible reality. South Serbia’s province of Kosovo-Metochia is already, de facto, part of “united” Albania from June 1999 and current political situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is surely going to the direction of the separation of North-West Macedonia mainly populated by Albanians who succeeded with the crucial Western support to promulgate a new language law in Macedonia’s Parliament according to which, the Albanian language is going to be a second state language (i. e., together with ...

Western Intelligence Operation “Kosovo Liberation Army” Harvested Serbs’ Organs – The EU’s inquiry

An inquiry by the EU has found “compelling indications” that ten Serb captives had their body organs harvested for illegal trafficking during the 1998-99 Kosovo war. However, it wasn’t widespread and there will be no trial, the lead investigator said.The chief prosecutor Clint Williamson, who led the investigation, said there was no evidence of widespread organ harvesting, but that the crime had occurred a number of times.“There are compelling indications that this practice did occur on a very limited scale and that a small number of individuals were killed for the purpose of extracting and trafficking their organs,” he told ...

Lithuanians under Police State Attack and the World under Washington’s Attack

According to news reports and to this appeal by Kristoferis Voishka, the pro-American government installed in Lithuania is persecuting Lithuanians who dissent from the anti-Russian propaganda that is driving Washington’s NATO puppets to war with Russia. Unlike their puppet government, Lithuanians understand that war with Russia means that Lithuania on the front line will be utterly destroyed, a result that would not bother Washington in the least, just as Washington is undisturbed when its forces obliterate weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games. What is Lithuania? To Washington it is a nothing. Kristoferis Voiska runs an alternative Internet news site in LIthuania. Not ...

Croatian Schooling ‘Leaves Pupils Ill-Informed’ About WWII Regime

Many Croatian schoolchildren know little about crimes committed under the country’s World War II-era fascist regime – but experts claim that the revisionist political environment is more to blame than the education system.The former Jasenovac concentration camp, one of the most important World War II historical sites in the former Yugoslavia, is around 110 kilometres from Croatia’s capital Zagreb - an hour and a half by bus.But no schools in Zagreb sent their pupils on trips to the Jasenovac Memorial Site last year.Out of a total of 909 primary schools in Croatia, only seven of them organised visits for pupils ...

British Parliament Confirms: Libya War was Based on Lies

The UK Parliament just confirmed what the alternative media has been saying for years. Specifically, a new report from the bipartisan House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee – based on interviews with all of the key British decision-makers, review of documents, and on-the-ground investigations in Africa – found that the Libyan war was based on lies, that it destroyed the country, and that it spread terrorism far and wide. The War Based On Bogus Intelligence … Like the Iraq War Initially, the report finds that the threat to civilians from Libyan government forces was dramatically overstated: Former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, who introduced ...

Lawyers Serve Indictment on NATO Leaders for War Crimes

“This is an historic opportunity to demonstrate the even-handedness of international justice” – Michael Mandel, law professor, York University, Toronto, Canada, 1999 NATO leaders found guilty of war crimes in Yugoslavia “NATO leaders acted in open violation of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12th August 1949, and the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8th June 1977 . . .” Dr Will Podmore, The Lancet (June 26th 1999) In the District Court of Belgrade on September 22, 2000, the President of the court, Veroljub Raketic, handed down guilty verdicts against government leaders of NATO countries for ...

500 Years of Nakbas

“The Palestinians face the last bastion of legalized racial rule on the planet.” The great nakba, or “catastrophe,”began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus proclaimed the lands of the “Indies” for Spain. Within half a century of his voyage, 95 percent of the inhabitants of the America’s had been killed by European-borne diseases, war, famine and enslavement: 100 million dead, or one out of every five human beings on the planet, the most catastrophic loss of life in recorded history. But, the nakbahad just begun. For the next half a millennium, Europeans would inflict countless “catastrophes” on the world’s darker peoples. As Mumia ...

Why the West cannot Stomach Russians

When it comes to Russia or the Soviet Union, reports and historical accounts do get blurry; in the West they do, and consequently in all of its ‘client states’. Fairytales get intermingled with reality, while fabrications are masterfully injected into sub consciousness of billions of people worldwide. Russia is an enormous country, in fact the largest country on Earth in terms of territory. It is scarcely inhabited. It is deep, and as a classic once wrote: “It is impossible to understand Russia with one’s brain. One could only believe in it.” The Western mind generally doesn’t like things unknown, spiritual and complex. ...

The Problem is America: The Malignant Cultural Hegemony

What is wrong with the American people? After several years of horrific policy toward the waking world, democracy’s standard bearers seem to be drowning in a lake of selfishness. Distracted, apathetic, or simply dumbed and numbed by unrelenting propaganda, the most admired society on Earth has turned to a wriggling mush of diverging ideals. I fear that American have become what we ultimately deplored, just another despicable cultural hegemony. Here’s a short brief on the matter. A recent article by James Carden at The Nation prompted me to discuss this unsavory truth today. The title of the piece, “Trump’s Syria Policy: ...

If this Haitian was Superstitious Like the Clintons

“malè ou swete bèlmè, se manman ou li frape” – the evil you wish upon your mother-in-law strikes your mother, Haitian wisdom The other day, I saw a video excerpt of an October 2012 speech in which Bill Clinton was telling an audience in New-York how his wife, Hillary, possesses the extraordinary psychic ability to speak regularly with the dead, in particular, with the spirit of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.* Today, some U.S. citizens who are still stunned by the election of Donald Trump may be seeking extra insights to help answer many troubling questions. However, I doubt the dead are in any way equipped to help them understand what is happening in the so-called “land of the free and home ...

As the Election Turns: Trump the Anti-Neocon, Hillary the New Darling of the Neocons

Just as the Republican convention demonized Hillary (“Lock Her Up”), so the Democrats are demonizing Donald Trump. They refuse to support any policy that he backs, even when he says something progressive. One might think that at least Bernie’s supporters would applaud Trump’s left-wing transformation of the old conservative, pro-corporate neocon Cheney-Bush core of the Republican Party. But nobody had a single good word to say about Trump’s assertions that he would wind down confrontation with Russia, reduce military spending on the grounds that NATO is obsolete, and oppose the TPP and TTIP as well as rewrite NAFTA’s terms. The Democrats are ...

Edward S. Herman: The Srebrenica Massacre was a Gigantic Political Fraud

Eleven Years ago: 11 July 1995, The Srebrenica Massacre First published by GR in February 2013. Renowned author Dr. Edward Herman spoke with John Robles of the Voice of Russia regarding the facts surrounding the Srebrenica Massacre, the pretext for the “humanitarian” invasion of the former Yugoslavia, and takes apart the “official” ; version that has always been promoted by the West. Dr. Herman reveals that there were in fact multiple massacres at Srebrenica, and that the killing of Bosnian-Muslim soldiers at Srebrenica (the West’s pretext) was in response to the killing of over 2,000 Serb civilians, mostly women and children, at ...

Provoking the Russian Bear: NATO is “Cannon Fodder” for the American Empire

BALTOPS 16 is a military exercise now taking place between June 3 and June 18 in the Baltic Sea region which is in close proximity to Russia. The U.S. Naval Institute (www.usni.org) released an article titled ‘Analysis: Larger NATO Baltic Sea Exercise Sends Important Message to Russia’ stated what BALTOPS 16 will consist of: Over the next three weeks BALTOPS 16 will draw together some 6,000 personnel, 45 warships, and 60 aircraft from 17 nations, including the United States, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, along with the littoral states of the Baltic States who are NATO members (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, ...

Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes Speech

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest. Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement! Donate to Support Us We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

“Mafia State”: Kosovo’s PM Accused of Running Human Organ, Drug Trafficking Cartel

In another grim milestone for the United States and NATO, the Council of Europe (COE) released an explosive report last week, “Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo.”The report charged that former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) boss and current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi, “is the head of a ‘mafia-like’ Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe,” The Guardian disclosed.According to a draft resolution unanimously approved December 16 in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights found compelling evidence of forced disappearances, organ trafficking, corruption and collusion between ...

America’s Role in the Creation of the State of Israel

Review of Alison Weir's "Against Our Better Judgement: How the U.S. was used to create Israel". Relevant to recent developments pertaining to the US-Israel alliance is this article first published on GR in May 2014. Weir’s fascinating history focuses on how the State of Israel came into existence through a cynical using of the United States and how it was defended from American critics who saw the support for Israel as violating US principles and damaging US interests. The significance of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British “gentleman’s agreement” between the British government and Lord Rothschild that pledged British support for a Jewish ...

Who did Fight for Liberation of Bulgaria in 1877-1878?

Russian professor, Doctor of History Sergey Perevezentsev has touched upon a hidden historical and political motive of the scandal caused by the speech of the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow at the celebration of Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman oppressors. It would seem that Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said everything correctly in his speech - he called to keep memory of the warriors of many nations killed on the fields of those old battles: Russians, Romanians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Polacks, Lithuanians, Serbians and Montenegrins. "Historical tolerance" is preserved, and principle of "multiplicity of truths" is not broken. However, as the historian explained, in 1874 ...

The Russian World and European Civilization

In recent years, both the Western as well as the liberal Russian press have had a lot to say about Russian “barbarianism,” as if to contrast it with European “civilization.” But a closer inspection – through the prism of the heroic pages of Russian history – of the two groups’ moral ideals and actual lives presents us with quite a different picture. For example, in pagan times, ancient Russians never worshipped a god of war, although their contemporaries in Europe were transfixed by their own martial deity, constructing an entire epic narrative around the concepts of war and conquest. After defeating the ...