How Deeply is the U.S. involved in the Afghan Drug Trade?

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/17961

How Deeply is the U.S. involved in the Afghan Drug Trade?
by Eric Margolis | October 16, 2008

snip//

Experience in Indochina and Central America suggests that CIA, the principal paymaster for U.S.-backed Afghan warlords, may be more deeply involved in the drug trade than we yet know.

Author Alfred McCoy's wrote a brilliant study in his ground-breaking 'The Politics of Heroin' in which he documents how first French, then American intelligence was drawn into the heroin trade in Laos and Vietnam as a way of supporting anti-Communist guerilla fighters. The same thing happened in Central America where CIA collaborated with cocaine-dealing members of the anti-Communist Contras.

In both cases, drugs served as a currency and became more important than paper money. French and American spies even ended up transporting heroin for their local allies. The same may be happening in Afghanistan.

Equally disturbing, there is no way that simple Afghan farmers or Taliban fighters are running the drug trade, as Washington claims. Poppy sap is collected and converted into opium tar. Then it is smuggled to secret labs in Pakistan to be transformed into first morphine base, and then purified into heroin. None of these drugs would move south into Pakistan or be processed with imported chemicals without the full cooperation and assistance of the Afghan government, its supporting warlords, and local Pakistani officials. The drugs are then smuggled out of the port of Karachi, again under at protection by port and local officials. Pakistan is a key U.S. ally.

The Karzai regime has been totally corrupted by the drug trade, and so has parts of Pakistan's establishment. But the United States has also become corrupted in the sense that it has done nothing to combat this scourge and has collaborated with Afghanistan's drug barons by at minimum turning blind eye.

When the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is written, Washington's sordid involvement in the heroin trade and its alliance with drug lords and war criminals of the Afghan Communist Party will be one of the most shameful chapters.

[Joanne98]

1. A heroin rescue for the banks!

[Blue Meany]

2. Maybe this is how they are funding the RNC n/t

[PDJane]

3. If there is a drug racket,

Look for the sticky fingerprints of the CIA and Pentagon black ops, because the likelihood is that they are there.

[Aragorn]

6. and....

the DEA.

[Oldenuff]

12. found a little ditty

That someone posted awhile back.Can't remember who it was,but it sums it up nicely:



Georgie porgie, bu$ch and quale
Here's the team the Contras hail
Fly down guns
And fly back drugs
Government, as run by THUGs

[bemildred]

4. THIS is why the US Government will not end the Drug War.

Unless we force them to. It's just too handy when you want to circumvent the Constitution.

[Oldenuff]

7. War on some drugs..

And by doing so they perpetuate crime.So much for the "war on Drugs"...it's really a "War on some Drugs".(you know...the ones the government doesn't make money off of.)

pssst...hey kid....want some heroin?


no thanks.Got any pot?

Pot is a dangerous drug kid!Haven't you heard it's a gateway drug?First you try pot,and then next thing you know,you're doing...uhhh..well...hmmm..come on kid,I got a business to run here,gimme a break will ya?You don't wanna help the Tearists do ya?

I call bullshit.

[Chemical Bill]

5. Very deeply. Wall St. too. n/t

[AntiFascist]

10. Interesting article here about AIG and drug money laundering:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/part_2.html

...

"We find the same network linking CIA proprietaries, war lobbies, and organized crime, when we turn our attention from CAT to the other identified supporter of opium activities, Sea Supply, Inc. Sea Supply, Inc. was organized in Miami, Florida, where its counsel, Paul E. Helliwell, doubled after 1951 as the counsel for C.V. Starr insurance interests, and also as the Thai consul in Miami..."

The historical connections to CIA covert or proprietary air operations are interesting in light of the fact that AIG proudly announces in its 2000 annual report that with 494 full-sized jets -- 89 of which it manages itself -- it owns "the world's most modern fleet of aircraft." AIG customers include major airlines and a number of air transport companies. AIG also reported that in 2000 it leased additional aircraft "to a number of established customers" in South America.

CIA proprietary ownership or interest in companies is very difficult to detect. But, it has been proven by writers like Scott and many other researchers who combed through the paperwork that surfaced during the Iran-Contra scandals of the 1980s, where Air America assets were laundered into companies like Southern Air Transport and Evergreen Air. The single largest stockholder in AIG, the Starr International Company (SICO), holds 13.62% of AIG stock. Aside from knowing that Maurice Greenberg owns 21.86% of SICO (source, SEC) we may never be able to find out who, or what, owns the rest.

...

[Chemical Bill]

11. It's well worth supporting with tax money.

:sarcasm:

[judasdisney]

8. Ergenekon ... and Sibel Edmonds' revelations (Hastert, etc)... and Mueller the mole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_network

http://www.madcowprod.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

[tom_paine]

9. The US? Probably not much. The Bushies who rule Amerika? Deeply involved.

These are two different concepts. Only crazy Bushies themselves, like the crazy Nazis before them, believe THEY are synonymous with America.

We do the Bushes' work for them when we forget that American and Bushie and not the same...like German and Nazi.