Taliban funding their war through opium.

news.yahoo.com...

CHINAR, Afghanistan - When the Taliban ordered Afghanistan's fields cleared of opium poppies seven years ago because of Islam's ban on drugs, fearful farmers complied en masse.

Today, officials say the militia nets tens of millions by forcing farmers to plant poppies and taxing the harvest, driving the country's skyrocketing opium production to fund the fight against what they consider an even greater evil — U.S. and NATO troops.

"Drugs are bad. The Quran is very clear about it," said Gafus Scheltem, NATO's political adviser in southern Afghanistan. But to fight the enemy, he said, "all things are allowed. They need money and the only way they can get money is from Arabs that support them in the (Persian) Gulf, or poppies."

Not surprise there, the Taliban use to fund their war against the Northern Alliance back in the 90s. Its one of best ways to fund your war.

My question is.........

Who processes the opium into Heroin?

Who transports the Heroin?

What is the ultimate destination of the Heroin?

Who ultimately benifits from the sale of the Heroin?

Are the Taliban just tools in the manufacture of Heroin?

[edit on 10-4-2007 by whaaa]

Originally posted by deltaboy
Not surprise there, the Taliban use to fund their war against the Northern Alliance back in the 90s. Its one of best ways to fund your war.

You can thank for the CIA for paving that road. Their 'expertise' in this subject matter really brings home the bacon so to speak. Unfortunately this will continue and probably even surpass current world heroin production levels.

brill

Originally posted by deltaboy
Not surprise there, the Taliban use to fund their war against the Northern Alliance back in the 90s. Its one of best ways to fund your war.

No point painting haloes over any one group. The Northern Alliance (and even the current "leader" in Afghanistan) weren't exactly detached from reaping funds off poppy growth, either.

Our pharmapseudical companies buy up 90% of the opium to process all the pain medications they create.

In every war fought since WW2 drugs has been the main commodity of funding and running the day to day business of destruction. When wars are fought over oil or trading rights, and it all becomes too obscenes and grotesque to a just mind, then stuff with properties to ease pain and forget becomes commodity number one and makes people accept their misery and destitute fate.

Illegal drugs went into service of war and got its official stamp of approval when US intelligence during and prior to the invasion of Sicily in 1943 collaborated with Lucky Luciano and his partner Meyer Lansky, a Jewish mobster, in what was called Operation Underworld. The resulting Mafia contacts were also used by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – the wartime predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

When US took over the Indochina war after the French, a system run by French intelligence bringing down the opium from the hills had long been established. What CIA added to it was setting up local labs rather than relying on having it processed in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Marseilles. They also sat up the undercover financial institutions like Nugan-Hand Bank, Castle Bank for laundering the money, and Air America for logistic and distribution.

In the process they corrupted much of the tribal community from Shan State to the Bay of Tonkin and further consolidated the local powers dependence on drugs as THE economy. Not there's much new in that. Since the British wrecked open Indochina in 1855 by forcing the Bowring treaty on the Siamese, a monopoly on opium was granted the ruling powers, first of all the Thai kings. That's the basis for the wealth and power structures as they appear today, but the real boost came in the sixties when CIA started running the business.

I had a thread on this some time back, lot of informations on Vietnam, CIA and drug-running.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

As for today and Afghanistan --and Central America and Columbia-- or any other place where war and drug production meet, a special pattern of suppliers and contractors appear. That pattern seems to be made up by Halliburton subsidiary KBR specializing in pipeline construction and the infrastructure and logistic around it. The subsidiary goes back to Brown & Root, a pioneer company in off-shore constructions. Oilplatforms have for long been main points of transit in trafficking.

What's so striking and strange is, any time a new smugling route is disclosed, KBR has been along that line for years.



[edit on 11-4-2007 by khunmoon]