Afghanistan: First you get the drugs, then you get the money, then you get the power

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Sun, 2009-02-08 18:42

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

The CBC reported recently that Canada would soon be engaged in attacking herione plantations that supported the Taliban. They said it would be illegal to attack non-Taliban drug lords.

Now the pointman for the Obama administration also says the US will target the drug trade in Afghanistan:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413060680861197.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It has been argued that the drug trade provided the West with huge sums of money that helped to propel the economy and that the Taliban's ending of the drug trade under their regime was economic warfare against the West and in particular the US and that, not 9/11 nor a pipeline, was the real trigger for the invasion.

So is attacking Taliban associated drug lords (and who makes the association?) merely one drug gang taking out the competition by killing off another? Has Canada's military just been recruited as enforcers in a global drug gang seeking to dominate the market?

I wonder ...

Sun, 2009-02-08 20:26

wage zombie

It's not quite like that. The Taliban got a whackload of money before 9-11 for cracking down on poppy farming. Western influence i drug policy is almost always about cracking down. Now whether the USA was looking to cripple the Afghan economy pre-invasion, that's another question.

I'm sure the West is happy to control poppy production either way.

Sun, 2009-02-08 20:54

Fidel

wage zombie wrote:

It's not quite like that. The Taliban got a whackload of money before 9-11 for cracking down on poppy farming. Western influence i drug policy is almost always about cracking down. Now whether the USA was looking to cripple the Afghan economy pre-invasion, that's another question.

Exactly. With collaboration of the UN, the Taliban reduced opium growing by 94 percent. That's partly why the US and NATO had to put an end to Taliban rule. Next to oil and international weapons dealing, illicit drugs is the next most lucrative trade. And the CIA and friends control the flow of drugs around the world to a large extent. CIA: the world's biggest dope delivery service.

Sun, 2009-02-08 22:58

Cueball

wage zombie wrote:

It's not quite like that. The Taliban got a whackload of money before 9-11 for cracking down on poppy farming. Western influence i drug policy is almost always about cracking down. Now whether the USA was looking to cripple the Afghan economy pre-invasion, that's another question.

I'm sure the West is happy to control poppy production either way.

Yes Colin Powell's 11 million dollar payout for the summer of 2001. I remember it.

Sun, 2009-02-08 23:52

Fidel

They needed to ensure a steady supply of product for their former KLA gladios in Kosovo and Balkans. Narco-kleptocracies and CIA/Brits go hand in hand as a rule. They've dealt with the all the anticommunist scum of the earth at one time or another