NEWS: US Blaming Britain for Booming Afghan Opium Trade

Originally posted by Seekerof

The UK and Opium have a long history.
Just ask China.
The Opium Wars

Britain and the Opium Wars




seekerof

And this means.........

This means seekerof is trying to mitigate our own atrocities through comparative reasoning. Which is kinda like saying, "But Dad, the otehr kids are doing it!", except this isn't a cigarette or a baseball through a window, this is the illegal exploitation of drug markets. Nothing new though folks they have been doing it for thousands of years. And just a little FYI seekerof, 70,000 AMERICANS died finishing up the IndoChina Opium Wars, so don't try to pretend we weren't genitalia deep in that, or pretend weren't flying opium over the heads of our boys in Nam courtesy of the Bush/Dulles CIA.

If you want to kill the poppy trade then legalise all drugs. This would reduce the quantity needed since you don't need the overheads for losses. Secondly you would grow it at home and reduce the overseas production even more! Thirdly you would ensure its clean and controlled so eliminating the overdose and bad product problems. Fourth you would tax it and make money. Fifth you can reallocate police and military activites elsewhere. Sixth you would signficantly reduce drug related crime, it becomes a tax avoidance issue instead !

Animals (human and non-human) like being doped up so let them but ensure that they are educated about the risks.

as posted by twitchy
...70,000 AMERICANS died finishing up the IndoChina Opium Wars...

So the iceman cometh, eh? Not.
'A' typical again of you twitchy to make an assertion and claim that is not backed by anything resembling a source. Interesting no?
Not sure how "west" in NC you live, but dude, spare me, and stop drinking the water.

Just for a quick reference, I Googled your asserted statement and came up with ummmm, nada?!
70,000 AMERICANS died in the IndoChina Opium Wars

Sure you talking about the same "Opium War" as I am, twitchy?
Help me out here and provide something backing your assertion and claim.

as quoted by devilwasp
And this means....

Hello?
You were born, raised, and live where?
It implies exactly what I referenced: a long standing connection between the UK and Opium.





seekerof

[edit on 25-5-2005 by Seekerof]

Question:

Do the British Troops occupy Military bases in Afganistan, or do the US Troops?

I remember that during the Afganistan-Russian war, CIA (Cocaine Import Agency) established a route from Pakistan to Afganistan to smuggle weapons in, and opium out of Afganistan.

So - with the 2001 Invasion of Afganistan the production of opium poppies has reached al time High. Why? Because of Britain? As I recall, they did not attack Afganistan.

US forces bust 15 suspected drug traffickers

Karzai accused of being soft on opium trade

Bush Will Not Stop Afghan Opium Trade

War Views: Afghan heroin trade will live on

US Abandoning Afghan Opium Eradication Effort

Kind of hard to abolish or eradicate something that has been with a people and society for more than a thousand years, huh, Souljah?

Personally, if the opium, which fuels roughly 68-75% of the world's opium users, is such a big concern, why isn't more countries, not just the US, actively aiding Afghanistan and trying to curtail the opium coming out of Afghanistan?

Be careful in who and whom you point the finger at, Souljah. Just because the US is in Afghanistan, it does not imply that we have to 'police' a long standing 1000+ year staple and tradition. This is not a US problem, it is a world problem. Let the world become more pro-active in aiding Afghanistan and policing the opium there instead of sitting on their collective backsides and simply pointing a finger at the US and saying: "There. Your there. You stop it or else."

Typical.





seekerof

[edit on 25-5-2005 by Seekerof]

The UK recognises that opium is a drug, also are you two really trying to imply the UK government is trying to help the opium dealers?

Originally posted by Seekerof
Personally, if the opium, which fuels roughly 68-75% of the world's opium users, is such a big concern, why isn't more countries, not just the US, actively aiding Afghanistan and trying to curtail the opium coming out of Afghanistan?

Well - I see CIA as the Drug Import/Export Agency Numero Uno - no other world agency can some really close to their efforts in so called "war on drugs".

From the days of the Vietnam War the CIA has been at the forefront of heroin trafficking. When the Reagan administration needed to finance its war against Nicaragua the CIA applied what it had learned in Vietnam to importing vast quantities of coc aine (sometimes 20 tons at a time) from Latin America, selling it to the Mafia, and using the profits to finance its "covert activities", activities so contrary to America's professed values that they must be concealed at all costs from the American people.

ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies.

Be careful in who and whom you point the finger at, Souljah. Just because the US is in Afghanistan, it does not imply that we have to 'police' a long standing 1000+ year staple and tradition. This is not a US problem, it is a world problem. Let the world become more pro-active in aiding Afghanistan and policing the opium there instead of sitting on their collective backsides and simply pointing a finger at the US and saying: "There. Your there. You stop it or else."

I dont see the world intelligence agencies conducting all sorts of drug trafficking in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Afganistan, Pakistian etc. And, yes it is a US problem, when American Weapon Contractors are used to laundry dirty money, being made on opium and coc aine.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as is by now well-known by anyone who has cared to be informed, has long been deeply involved in the international trafficking of the addictive drugs heroin and (since the early 1980s, if not earlier) coc aine, the enormous profits from which have financed, and continue to finance, both U.S. covert operations and the U.S. military (via payments to Pentagon contractors).

Covert government by defense contractor means corrupt wars of conquest, government by dope dealer. When the world's traditional inebriative herbs become illegal commodities, they become worth as much as precious metal, precious metal that can be farmed. ... Illegal drugs, solely because of the artificial value given them by Prohibition, have become the basis of military power anywhere they can be grown and delivered in quantity. ... To this day American defense contractors are the biggest drug-money launderers in the world.

Basicly what I am saying is that CIA is the Worlds Number one Drug Import Agency - and CIA is from United States right? I am not talking about MI5 or MI6, I am talking about CIA.

So - WHEN did British Inteligence Agencies conduct illegal drug trafficking operations? I have found numerous articles and books proving my story.

I see the title of this thread as a distraction from the Real Deal that is going on.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Personally, if the opium, which fuels roughly 68-75% of the world's opium users, is such a big concern, why isn't more countries, not just the US, actively aiding Afghanistan and trying to curtail the opium coming out of Afghanistan?

The U.N. estimated in 1997 that the drug sales represents 8% of all world trade, mostly from heroin and coc aine. That represented $440 billion in '97--in 2003 that amount grew to $1.2 trillion.

Considering that this is more than the GDP of almost every country on the planet, its not like this money can be easily removed without it making a serious dent in the world economy. Who would want that to happen?

Think about who is profiting from drug sales--and its not just the drug traffickers. The real money is in laundering. How do you think this money is laundered? Or a better question is--who is helping to launder this money?

It is important to look at how Afghanistan and Pakistan became the worlds largest heroin producers. Remember the BCCI scandal? Remember how the CIA financed the Mujahadeen? Drug money. Prior to 1979, Afghanistan and Pakistan were local opium suppliers--the CIA turned them into prolific heroin traffickers. By 1999, Afghanistan was producing 75% of the world's heroin.

Prior to the Patriot Act, a lot of that money was laundered by channeling it through U.S. financial institutions via foreign correspondent banks (many of them run by former CIA bosses, like BCCI). These banks had looser administrative procedures and fell under foreign jurisdictions, enabling drug traffickers to open accounts in places like the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas, with no questions asked. All of the major U.S. banks still have correspondent relationships with thousands of small banks and funnel billions of dollars in and our of these accounts every day. The Patriot Act requires all banks to adhere to stricter procedures and refrain from dealing with banks in countries that don't follow anti-money laundering standards, but as history has proven, standards go out the window when there is an opportunity for big profits.

But beyond banks, many Fortune 500 manufacturing firms are also involved in laundering drug money. They claim it is without their knowledge, but I have my doubts when you are selling refrigerators or truckloads of cigarettes to someone who pays you in the middle of the night with suitcases full of cash. Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, GM and GE have all been involved in money laundering cases where they sold goods either "off-the-books" for cash or via deals with off-shore banks--and I would imagine that there are many other instances that never make it to the news.

But how much money are we talking about? Think about this...

The Taliban imposed a ban on poppy cultivation in July 2000, which essentially ended when the Taliban were disbanded and the Northern Alliance took over. The poppy-farmers were back in business for the 2002 harvest.

Consider the impact on global cash flows because of this move. Let's say that the Afghan heroin supply translates to about $600 billion in cash annually (assuming that Afghan heroin accounts for roughly half of cash generated from drug sales--this is based on UNODC estimates.)

Doesn't sound like a lot? Well it is. We are talking about cash. Current U.S. cash in circulation (M1--which also includes checking accounts) is only about $1.4 trillion. Although an equivalent global statistic doesn't exist, I would guess that it is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 trillion.

Based on that assumption, Afghan heroin sales would represent approximately 3% of global money supply. A 3% decrease in money supply will cause a serious ripple--when the FOMC wants to adjust the U.S. money supply, anything more than 1% would be considered a radical move.

It is interesting to note that about 6 months after the Taliban eradicated Afghan poppy fields, the recession began. At the end of 2000, U.S. firms began laying off employees and during the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2001, manufacturing slowed down, corporate profits declined and the stock market headed further into the cellar.

Another interesting observation is that about 8 months after the bumper poppy crop in June 2002, the economic recovery began.

Correlation or causality? I'm not sure, but that's quite a bit of cash to put back into the hands of drug dealers, banks, corporations... and considering the multiplier effect of a bank being able to lend 9 to 15 times its deposits and a corporation being able to sell products "off-the-books", we are talking about much more than $600 billion (and that's just Afghan heroin--add in coc aine and now we are talking serious money...)

Because of the dependence on drug money, the unspoken attitude of most governments is that it should be controlled like any traded good--not eradicated. Considering that our own government uses the drug trade to finance covert operations and as a control mechanism via the CIA, I think that we will continue to see the government feign outrage in public and privately exert control.

Some interesting reading & background for the above:

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion from September 10, 2001, Steve Coll

Interview with Alfred McCoy, Author of The Politics of Heroin; CIA Complicity In The Global Drug Trade

The Spoils of War: Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade by Michel Chossudovsky

101 BCCI Scandal links

I don't think blaming the Brittish for this will solve anything. Instead those who are blaming the Brittish should be working with them to find a way to solve this problem.


[edit on 25-5-2005 by Muaddib]

I blame America (CIA) for selling coc aine to its people that it "purchased" Columbia.

Never heard of the Vietnam War Seekerof? Yes 70,000 Americans died in the Indochina opium wars. Do you really need me to proove this, or do the words Laos, Air America, Corsicans, etc. not mean anything to you. The simple fact of the matter is that Vietnam was the final push for western Control of the Opium trade. Ho Chi Mihn appealed to the United States for aide, both in person and in letters and after we told him to get bent several times, they appealed to the Russians, and we couldn't have that... you can look up just as easily as I can. We lost the IndoChina Opium Wars, then Uncle Sam got caught with his pants down in Central America, so now we have latched onto Afghanistan. I really don't want to sit here and rehash a debate we have had on this forum many times, but here's a good list of starter kits...

A little 'French' geography might help you as well...

www.google.com...
In French Indochina, which includes modern-day Vietnam...
Small group tour of Indochina (Cambodia, Vietnam)...
repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina. ...
breathtaking visions of modern day Vietnam...

The next quote is lengthy, but you need the info.

www.serendipity.li...
1947 to 1951, FRANCE
According to Alfred W. McCoy in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks — ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.


Early 1950s, SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos), the world's largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the ClA's principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. (See Christopher Robbins, Air America, Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9.)


1950s to early 1970s, INDOCHINA
During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI's in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's booming heroin market.


1973-80, AUSTRALIA
The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including fommer CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. (See Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, W.W. Norton & Co., 1987.)


1970s and 1980s, PANAMA
For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated "guns-for-drugs" flights for the contras, providing protection and pilots, as well as safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-ClA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellin Cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general, once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically drug trafficking through Panama increased after the US invasion. (John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, Random House, 1991; National Security Archive Documentation Packet The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations.)


1980s, CENTRAL AMERICA
The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the coc aine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating:

"There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region.... U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.... In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. govemment had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.... Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." (Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and Intemational Operations, 1989)
In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different ClA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation detailed by the Mercury News, and Noriega's operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and other ClA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders. In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S. repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa Rica to stand trial.

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move coc aine to the U.S.

Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service — closely associated with the CIA — harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the coc aine highway. Additionally, the Medellin Cartel's Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.

The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these ClA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received US government contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to the contras. Southern Air Transport, "formerly" ClA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as 'Contra Craft,' these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't clued in, and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.

1980s to early 1990s, AFGHANISTAN
ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [now, 2001, part of the "Northern Alliance"] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. In 1993, an official of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.

Mid-1980s to early 199Os, HAITI
While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN was purportedly created to fight the coc aine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some of the Haitian military and political leaders.

But please don't make otehr people do your homework for you man, here's 745 pages you can use to discover exactly what I mean when I say that 70,000 Americans died in the Indochina Opium Wars.
www.google.com...


And just an FYI, we have some of the cleanest water in the Nation. I'll send you some spring water that will knock your socks off. The old timers here can tell you what kind of rocks your spring is running through by taste.

[edit on 25-5-2005 by twitchy]