US Govt. Paying Taliban **Enemy Combatants** Monthly; Upwards of 20% of Budget

Hi ATS,

I don't think there is any way of sugar coating the information contained below. I find the allegations to be amazing. The Taliban is paid upwards of a billion dollars a year directly, and indirectly for protection.

I am simply presenting this article to the ATS community. Do with it as You will

Peace,

Sancho

How American taxpayer dollars are being used to fund our Afghan enemies
amconmag.com...
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Forget opium poppies for a moment. The Taliban has another huge source of revenue, worth up to $1 billion a year, which generously supplements its heroin-trafficking income and the cash-flow from rich oil sheiks in the Persian Gulf.

This money comes from you.

The allegation that millions of dollars of U.S aid and military funds have been siphoned off by the Taliban through elaborate extortion rackets is not something government officials readily discuss. But the departing head of the Army Corps of Engineers recently conceded that there was little his agency could do to stop it, and the U.S. State Department launched an investigation after reports of the scandal finally penetrated the mainstream news.

[edit on 29-9-2009 by sanchoearlyjones]

Mod Edit: External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 29/9/2009 by Mirthful Me]

reply to post by sanchoearlyjones


I've got something to add right now. We are paying not only outrageous amounts of money, which now are seemingly steeling the wealth of children not yet born, and are even paying for an enemy to play along.

Hey, I got an idea, let's go out, and simply protest healthcare, and fading cry about taxation. Yes, let's do exactly what the Elite want instead of burning the house down in rage over atrocities like this.

How many arms, legs, lives, and head injuries are on the shoulder's of those who now know about this; because now that You know there is something that can be done. Quit sitting on Your arses!!!!!! Yeah, go war, go Taliban, damn healthcare!!!!!

Yeah, and Israel used to train them in Pakistan a while back. It's an old truh, but surprisingly few know it.

reply to post by sanchoearlyjones


Wow, I am surprised that this took so long to make it onto here. I heard about this on NPR weeks ago. I couldn't post it then because I was on the road.

On my thoughts.. well, I am not surprised. We've been funding Blackwater, er, I mean XE for years now and they are mercs, for pete the dragon's sake! But then this is a common ocurrance in that part of the world. I remember that my father was putting together an RFP for the country of Nigeria once years ago and our local consulate actually told us to budget Bribes as a line item. lol So basically, so long as we are funding contractors there, we'll be funding mobs as well, even when the mob is our enemy (apparently).

Discussion: US taxpayers sponsor the Taliban
www.globalpost.com...

“It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide,” wrote GlobalPost’s Kabul correspondentJean MacKenzie. “In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is foreign assistance…” including U.S. taxpayer money that’s supposed to help stabilize the country.

MacKenzie’s reporting has triggered a U.S. State Department investigation, and Representative Bill Delahunt (D-MA) is vowing to hold hearings on the issue in Congress this fall.
To give you an opportunity to discuss this, GlobalPost Passport will host a conference call with MacKenzie on Thursday Sept. 10 at 12:30 p.m Eastern time.

Conference calls with GlobalPost correspondents are a regular feature of Passport’s premium content service. Although these discussion are usually restricted to members, this one will be open to the first 100 members of the public. We will give listeners the opportunity to ask questions during the 30 minute call.

If you would like to join us, please send an email to [email protected] before 9:30 a.m. Eastern time to reserve your spot. We will send you instructions on how to join the call.

You've got to be kidding me.

That's one weird government you Americans have!

Let me get this straight... We're paying the enemy to let our guys through with equipment to shoot them with, then they use the money to come kill people over here

Please tell me I'm confused...

S&F

I came across it back in August on GlobalResearch

Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know

Damn shame the ole taxpayer pays both the boys of the brave and the free, but, our enemy in the war as well.

I just say to myself "THAT is the reason I pay $5.00 a pack for smokes, $4.00 a gallon for gas and $60.00 per XXX for my XXX (Because my XXX habit is funding terrorism, you know. The old hippie who grows it, sells it and gives his cash right to some Islamic Fundamentalist with terroristic qualities.)

But I digress.
Lame anyway ya look at it.

Cuhail

[edit on 9/29/2009 by Cuhail]

reply to post by TheOneElectric


Hi, Do You have any links? I have run across this, or that, but not saved it.

reply to post by rogerstigers


Yes, I had heard it before, but was looking for something more on paper. I found that today. I would like to hear Your personal experiences with this; with as many details as possible, but of course whatever to protect Yourself please leave out

reply to post by Chovy


(Average Joe Schmo speaking) "what you be talkin' bout thar' You four-an-near. Whooo, Whooo, whooo, whooo, USA, USA, USA, USA

WAIT! Are you telling me history repeats itself? No FLIPPIN WAY! Who would have ever guessed.

reply to post by Sundancer


Well sure!!! If this wasn't done, then We would have no reason to be over there!!! You Un American Self Hater We need an enemy to keep up a good show, and reason to defend the multi national corporate interests of the poppy fields...........

Er, okay, no more playin'. I guess it is plain sick.

reply to post by Cuhail


Hey, thanks for the link; I do look at globalresearch, but just didn't see that one. It is amazing how self centered, and naughty the govt. tells us We are.

Go figure to realize that all the things they say are funding the terrorists, or Taliban is actually the US govt.

reply to post by king9072


Yes, history is like the broken record player that just won't stop. The People have gotten so tired of it that even though it plays they aren't listening

reply to post by sanchoearlyjones


Sancho, I really don't have many details to report.. it was almost 15 years ago. From what I remember, my father received a a request for proposal by the Nigerian government to build a series of TV stations across the country. They were wanting to upgrade their TV infrastructure. The proposal seemed fairly straightforward, although a bit foreign in some regards.. which was probably to be expected. We contacted what I believe was the Nigerian consulate for advice on how to approach the bid, primarilly because we had been exposed to a Nigerian scam before, and they stated that it should be a normal process for the most part. They did advise, though, that he should include a line item for bribes in the financials. They stated that it was a simple fact of life in Nigeria that people demanded money on the side to get things moving.

Ultimately, our bid was submitted, but we never heard back. Who knows if that project ever really got off the ground.

reply to post by rogerstigers


Er, I did my turn in the contracting arena, and many times for inside job awarding the People would steal bids to give their preferred People decent numbers to base off of.

Estimating cost's money, and that puts another spin on the whole af-pac arena. I would wonder how many People put the effort, time, and money into bids for work over there, only to have it stolen by the preferred contractor?

I'll bet it's happened a few times.

yep, I'm bumping this for the day.

People need to think through the seriousness of the implications of Our US Govt. is perpetuating the wars by funding Our very enemy.

So, since the enemy is funded, and receiving foreign aid, doesn't that mean they are an ally? What a load of sheeeet .

Ive known this myslf for a long long time...i guessit could explain to an extent, why the system here is hurting...our governemntis paying the enemy, taliban, A billion daollars a year, to import heroin...and we havea war on drugs? really, if this is the case, we should jsut scrap any drug enforecment law then. its pointless, mindless, and crazy, to implement a law, to inflict on its people, while the source is known and being payed for via tax[auyers money. Maybe this is why our taxes are going up? to pay the Taliban! who knows, could be....
I am so sad, about america today. its the most beutiful country in the world, our herosim and freedoms, are being dimminshed so the corporations and governemnt can tie us down, and weild a stick behind us, with thier foot pressed into our backs. i love america, really, but the people suck* n perticular, the ones that run it.

well its a suprise and not a surprise, like you said, we need an enemy over there to further the interests of big business (oil, pipelines, the great game)

reply to post by TheCoffinman


This post reminds me of this little story here:

History of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985.[dubious – discuss] After years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill. Failed attempts at reform, a stagnant economy, and war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially in the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe. Greater political and social freedoms, instituted by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, created an atmosphere of open criticism of the Moscow regime.

Hmmm .... Does that sound familiar to you?

Oh wait ... there is more ...

Jimmy Carter had officially ended the policy of Détente, by militarily aiding President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who in turn funded the anti−Soviet Mujahideen movement in neighboring Afghanistan, which served as a pretext for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan six months later, with the aims of supporting the Afghan government, controlled by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

My apologies if you guys consider this off-topic, but somehow it just rang a bell in my head

See the world is a big PLAY/ACT! Everyone is a star! Im sure all of the "missing" money from the FED was siphoned to terrorists for another attack of some sort. I sure love my country!

The real problem here as I see it is the contractor system.
The story itself is kind of a 'duh,' you live in a tribal landscape you pay the boss to pass through their land (unless you're stronger than the boss, or in our case trying to win his allegiance).

But what worries me is that we're relying on contractors (read privateers with dubious allegiance to the US or any govermnent) to supply the ammo and food to our men and women. Sounds again like a boots on the ground issue. We pay the contractors who aren't held accountable for their use of the money, so the protection money is probably nothing more than a line item on the contract that reads "miscellaneous tolls and taxes" and it passes through with a nod and a wink. Eveyone gets paid... SWEET DEAL!

I would say outright we should end the contractor system, but I am afraid that might ultimately cost us more both in lives and money (though I have no idea if this is true). Ultimately I'm for whatever keeps our troops safer and allows them to perform at their peak.

And ultimately, the only people who will solve the Taliban problem will be the Afghani people. People who are educated, secure in their home and have a full belly generally don't choose Sharia.

Great thread, OP! In light of this, we must remind ourselves of this fact:

Afghanistan now supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin, generating nearly $200 billion in revenue. Since the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, opium output has increased 33-fold (to over 8,250 metric tons a year).

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for over seven years, has spent $177 billion in that country alone, and has the most powerful and technologically advanced military on Earth. GPS tracking devices can locate any spot imaginable by simply pushing a few buttons.

Still, bumper crops keep flourishing year after year, even though heroin production is a laborious, intricate process. The poppies must be planted, grown and harvested; then after the morphine is extracted it has to be cooked, refined, packaged into bricks and transported from rural locales across national borders. To make heroin from morphine requires another 12-14 hours of laborious chemical reactions. Thousands of people are involved, yet—despite the massive resources at our disposal—heroin keeps flowing at record levels.

www.rawa.org...

The CIA and drug smuggling have been hand in hand for a long, long time. This is nothing new in Afghanistan:

ince October 2001, opium poppy cultivation has skyrocketed. The presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan did not result in the eradication of poppy cultivation. Quite the opposite.

The Taliban prohibition had indeed caused "the beginning of a heroin shortage in Europe by the end of 2001", as acknowledged by the UNODC.

Heroin is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow. One of the "hidden" objectives of the war was precisely to restore the CIA sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes.

Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored. Opium prices spiraled. By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

In 2001, under the Taliban opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.

While highlighting Karzai's patriotic struggle against the Taliban, the media fails to mention that Karzai collaborated with the Taliban. He had also been on the payroll of a major US oil company, UNOCAL. In fact, since the mid-1990s, Hamid Karzai had acted as a consultant and lobbyist for UNOCAL in negotiations with the Taliban. According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan:

"Karzai has been a Central Intelligence Agency covert operator since the 1980s. He collaborated with the CIA in funneling U.S. aid to the Taliban as of 1994 when the Americans had secretly and through the Pakistanis [specifically the ISI] supported the Taliban's assumption of power." (quoted in Karen Talbot, U.S. Energy Giant Unocal Appoints Interim Government in Kabul, Global Outlook, No. 1, Spring 2002. p. 70. See also BBC Monitoring Service, 15 December 2001)

As revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, CIA covert operations in support of the Afghan Mujahideen had been funded through the laundering of drug money. "Dirty money" was recycled --through a number of banking institutions (in the Middle East) as well as through anonymous CIA shell companies--, into "covert money," used to finance various insurgent groups during the Soviet-Afghan war, and its aftermath:

"Because the US wanted to supply the Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military hardware it needed the full cooperation of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the largest US intelligence stations in the World. `If BCCI is such an embarrassment to the US that forthright investigations are not being pursued it has a lot to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in Pakistan', said a US intelligence officer. ("The Dirtiest Bank of All," Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.)

Researcher Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA's covert operation in Afghanistan in 1979,

"the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 per cent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 1.2 million by 1985, a much steeper rise than in any other nation."

"CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.

U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there. In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. 'Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,' I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'"(McCoy, op cit)

www.globalresearch.ca...




[edit on 30-9-2009 by Someone336]