Opium // Current

Heroin addicts pressure President to stay course in Afghanistan

As the White House considers sweeping strategic shifts in the war in Afghanistan,... more

Vierotchka
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4 days ago
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28 comments

Old Man's Tearful Plea for Medical Marijuana

Suffering from cancer, and sickened by opium based pharmaceuticals, talks about his... more

Jenime
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10 days ago
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Morale Drops for Marines in Afghanistan

"“People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader of the Baluch tribe, who rules like a medieval baron. “Young people are turning against them and in time will fight them.”

“I’m not much for this war. I’m not sure it’s worth all those lives lost,” said Sergeant Christian Richardson as we walked across corn fields that will soon be ploughed up to plant a spring crop of opium poppy.

A New Yorker who joined the marines after 9/11 and served two tours in Iraq, Richardson, 24, said his men had achieved much. “You can see we are making progress, slowly. But when we leave, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda will surely return.”

The platoon knows there are at least 20 booby-trapped bombs on the high ground around the base. More than half the men have already been caught in blasts. One marine explosive expert was killed; others suffered broken legs and amputated feet. Three have survived two explosions and come back to fight again.

Later, a marine intelligence officer said the drug economy and the feudal system made the strategy of winning hearts and minds extremely complex. As drug producers, men such as Khan had a “working relationship with the Taliban”.

Nobody knew of the announcement last week in Kabul of a new round of national elections. Nobody voted in the first round. “We never even heard of elections. If we had, I suppose we might have voted,” said one villager."

You may wonder why NATO supports adding 40,000 more American troops to occupy Afghanistan. Well, when you look back at the Opium Wars and, here's a quote from Wikipedia of all places:

"The success of the First Opium War allowed the British to resume the drug trafficking within China. It also paved the way for the opening of the lucrative Chinese market and Chinese society to missionary endeavors."

you'll find that the British got the Opium from Afghanistan and they've been trying to control it ever since. When the Soviets tried to invade Afghanistan, not to spread Communism, but to get the Opium as well, the British intelligence and their American surrogates (b/c the British use the American military to fight its wars b/c they are weak and also co-conspire to stage world events) funded and armed the Taliban to fight them off.

I won't even get into 9/11 except for the fact that all the hijackers were Saudi Arabian (Al Qaeda=CIA), but anyway, our soldiers are dying because of Heroin, not Terrorism, Heroin. Terrorism is a front to introduce a police state, Big Brother, surveillance society: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25surveillance.html. Its a method to divide the people along religious lines; they've been doing it since the Crusades and laughing all the way to the Swiss bank.

Its going to be a long, cold winter for our troops in Afghanistan and when the spring comes, the Taliban will surge and kill a lot of Americans (thousands). Imagine being 22 years old and being sent to a remote mountain in Kandahar; you're a sitting duck, surrounded by militants who don't care if they die. There's no way we can win. We need to demand that our troops be brought home before they're sent back in body bags."“People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader... more

rodstradamus
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1 month ago
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The Taliban's Heroin Ploy

As the U.S. postpones a decision on Afghanistan, Gerald Posner reports on a new secret... more

atomiclegion
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1 month ago
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9 comments

The DEA is in Afghanistan !

Thats right, the War on Drugs just went Global !

hunzedog
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2 months ago
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47 comments

Mexican Cartels Hire US Teenage Killers

"A young American who worked as a paid killer for a Mexican drug gang has told the BBC... more

rodstradamus
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3 months ago
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9 comments

Opium addiction ravages Afghan families

SARAB, Afghanistan - Open the door to Islam Beg's house and the thick opium smoke... more

xiola
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Why we are in Afghanistan

The ministers of the Northern League have sparked a mini-storm in Berlusconi's... more

hyperion74
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Stoned Wallabies Blamed For Australian Crop Circles

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and... more

ras_menelik
added this
5 months ago
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17 comments

World drugs in graphics

A UN agency has published a comprehensive report on the worldwide illicit drugs... more

ras_menelik
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5 months ago
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8 comments

U.S. Sets Fight in the Poppies to Stop Taliban - NYTimes.com

Bad news for pharmaceuticals and strung out people alike... I'm eager to find out... more

pressrecord
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7 months ago
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1 comment

Opium war = EPIC FAIL

US efforts to combat the Afghan opium trade, a main source of funds for Taliban-led... more

SW2
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8 months ago
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3 comments

The Economist tells us how to stop the drug wars

Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution "The failure of the... more

ninthstate
added this
9 months ago
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8 comments

Afghanistan back on top in opium production

It was said that deliveries had been a little erratic under the Taliban. Normal... more

ras_menelik
added this
9 months ago
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3 comments

Pressured On Opium Crops, Many Afghan Farmers Switch To Cannabis

Opium-poppy eradication has been hailed as a success in much of Afghanistan's north... more

ras_menelik
added this
9 months ago
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2 comments

Opium, a recession-buster for farmers!

KABUL: Even as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) makes tall claims... more

ras_menelik
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9 months ago
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2 comments

US should say yes to drugs in Afghanistan

Sunil Ram: A rational policy requires buying poppies from Afghan farmers, and cutting out warlords. Part 3

In part three of our interview with security expert Sunil Ram, Sunil provides his answer to the hypothetical 3am phone call from the new U.S. president over what to do in Afghanistan. Sunil advocates for the replacement of the Karzai administration with a western military rule along with the open engagement in the Afghan drug economy, thus removing the financial lifeline of the warlords and the Taliban as well as providing economic stimulus to the Afghan population in a more effective way than the aid programs that are already in place. The opium could be marketed as a pharmaceutical product, as advocated by the Senlis Council, or even burned immediately, believes Sunil, but it must be taken out of the hands of the traffickers. Sunil attributes the unwillingness to pursue an active drug strategy not to a state of ignorance of the role of drug money, but rather to a combination of corruption and a general preference within the administration toward focusing on Iraq, a preference that has been present since day one.

Sunil Ram is a military and security expert with Alexis International, an international consulting firm. He is the Contributing Editor of SITREP, the private defense journal of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, and has served in the Canadian Forces as both a soldier and officer between 1980-86 and 1997-99. Sunil also served as a military adviser to the Saudi Royal Family for over ten years, including involvement in the 1991 Gulf War and the Yemeni conflict in the 1990s. He has won a series of awards, including the UN Global Citizen Award presented to him in 1995 by the UN. He has also published a variety of articles and books and has had columns on military affairs published in newspapers, such as Canada’s Globe and Mail.

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89455917_pakistan_in_a_panic

See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89462939_drugs_and_the_pakistani_military
Sunil Ram: A rational policy requires buying poppies from Afghan farmers, and cutting... more

Vierotchka
added this
1 year ago
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14 comments

NATO, US Deepen Anti-Drug Operations in Afghanistan in Bid to Throttle Taliban

The NATO and US forces battling Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan are on the verge of expanding their counterinsurgency efforts by getting more deeply involved in trying to suppress the country's booming opium trade. In so doing, they are stepping into tricky territory because they risk alienating large swathes of the population that are dependent on the trade to feed themselves and their families and driving them right into the tender embrace of the Taliban.

The new, more aggressive anti-drug stance will come in two forms. On one hand, NATO has committed for the first time to actively target and track down drug traffickers and heroin-processing laboratories. On the other hand, US military forces training the Afghan military will now begin accompanying Afghan soldiers as they provide force protection for Afghan government poppy eradication teams.

The more aggressive posture comes as the political and military situation in Afghanistan continues to worsen. Some 242 NATO and US troops have been killed in fighting there this year, 10 more than last year with two and a half months to go, and last year was the worst so far for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Some 33,000 US troops, including 13,000 under the command of the ISAF and 20,000 under direct US command, and nearly 40,000 NATO soldiers, are now in Afghanistan, and the Bush administration is calling for an additional 20,000 US troops to be deployed there next year.

The Taliban and related insurgents have shown increased military capabilities, in part because they are able to supply themselves with funds generated by the opium trade. The United Nations estimates that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are making perhaps $100 million a year from taxing poppy farmers and providing protection to drug traffickers.

A leaked draft of an as yet unreleased US National Intelligence Estimate last week revealed that US intelligence agencies believe the war in Afghanistan is "on a downward spiral," with part of the problem resting with a corrupt government under President Hamid Karzai and part of the problem linked to the "destabilizing impact" of the opium trade.The NATO and US forces battling Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan are on... more