Nato route opens through Russia

Nato route opens through Russia

english.aljazeera.net

Nato has opened an alternate supply route to Afghanistan though Russia and Central Asia, after its convoys moving through Pakistan faced deadly attacks from the local Taliban.

The new supply route is crucial for re-supplying the 140,000 strong Nato mission in land-locked Afghanistan.

Previously, cargo was shipped to the Pakistani port of Karachi and then transported into Afghanistan.

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Russia slams NATO on Afghan drugs

This is interesting because Russia was just complaining of the Heroin coming through Afghanistan to swamp the Russian streets. Could there have been a deal between Russia and the US to curb heroin coming into the former Soviet flag-ship? That's what it sure smells like.

Many members are familiar with America's role in the drug-trade and I suspect that Russia is is also familiar, at least more than the membership here. Could there have been a secret back-door deal to stop the drugs from flowing into Russia? I think the timing is impeccable.

To me, this is only indicative of the super-secret drug trade being run by the US in Afghanistan and being blamed on the Taliban. I think the Russian complaints of several days ago were only a "bow-shot" to American leadership over the drugs reaching their country.

--airspoon


english.aljazeera.net
(visit the link for the full news article)

Mod Edit: Breaking News Forum Submission Guidelines – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 12/6/2010 by Mirthful Me]

thought provoking postulations spoon
thanks for the thread and the info.


if indeed your theory is correct, this is the sort of thing that really grinds my gears, Our government working hand in hand with the russians to curb there heroin flow while pumping it in to our country at the same time we still propogate this Phony "war on drugs".

~meathead

reply to post by Mike Stivic


I agree and I suspect that our own regime wouldn't have even put in the effort to curb the heroin flow into Russia if Russia wouldn't have made such a big stink about it and basically threatened to blow the thing wide-open.

Think about it for a moment. Russia all but threatened action because of the drug problem coming out of Afghanistan, blaming the US and NATO for the problem. Now all of the sudden and out of the blue, they are offering unprecedented assistance with a NATO operation, the very same one they were just complaining about a couple of weeks ago.

It just doesn't make sense any other way.

--airspoon

This isn't surprising, we have made overtures to Russia in the past about this.

We should be able to move materiel by rail and it may end up being faster by rail through Russia than by road through Pakistan.

Not too long ago, I saw a Russian Antonov An-124 (Russia's C-5) airlifting US military materiel.

The thing is, Russia is right about the opium needs to be cracked down on. When I was in Afghanistan, the Afghan National Police were very corrupt and they were the primary movers of opium in the country.

So things happen.

Disease to cut Afghan opium 70%: minister, May 17, 2010

KABUL -- A mystery disease infecting opium poppies in Afghanistan could cut this year's illicit crop by up to 70 percent, an Afghan official said Sunday, exceeding an estimate by the United Nations...

“Interestingly there is a natural disease that is infecting opium in five provinces,” said Daud Daud, the deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics.

“In some areas up to 70 percent of the crops have been destroyed,” he said

www.chinapost.com.tw...

Cobra!!!

reply to post by MikeboydUS


Here's the thing, the poppy fields sprang up almost immediatly after the
US invasion in 2001. I can remember US soldiers, whole companies, being tasked with guarding the poppy fields that sprang up on land that was only just liberated by western soldiers and NA Uzbeks. It would seem, according to the briefs that the Taliban was targeting these opium fields and the US was guarding them under the guise that these farmers would join the Taliban is they didn't have the income from the poppies. How logical is that?

--airspoon

[edit on 12-6-2010 by airspoon]

reply to post by airspoon


I actually have been letting that very strategy marinate in my head for quite a while now.

If you want to stop the dealers, pay the farmers double what the drug lords pay. Take the crop and burn it.

You will price them out the market, and they would be very angry, and the crop wouldn't make into distribution.

reply to post by ErEhWoN


No matter how efficient your anti-drug policies are, it will always be possible to grow them in secret and sell them at incredibly high prices. The more efficient anti-drug policy is, the more lucrative and dangerous the drug trade becomes. The CIA has traditionally taken advantage of this inevitability in order to raise funds (black ops budgets have to come from somewhere, and I imagine that this is the only reason that black markets exist).

Every intelligence agency worth its salt uses weaponized narcotics against its enemies' civilian populations. Nixon says in the White House tapes that drugs (along with homosexuality!) are used to weaken and undermine the martial character of a nation during a cold war by creating extremely desirable and addictive hedonistic lifestyles that any sensible person would prefer to war.

If the OP is correct about the parapolitical deal made here, then it represents an important victory for Russia in the Drug War, the ongoing struggle between nations that has been fought for centuries with weaponized narcotics.

reply to post by airspoon


At the start we made a number of crazy deals to get the support of a number of warlords who didn't like the Taliban.

By 2005, these deals were not working. These warlords had began to support the Anti Coalition Militias and were more focused on growing poppy than helping us. They used the ANP to smuggle the stuff out of the country. These druglords/warlords were responsible for killing US and allied soldiers. My unit was attacked by such a dirtbag, resulting in multiple wounded and one KIA.

We realized we needed to make changes and we have.

Crops were targeted and torched. This policy continued until 2009, then eradication policy involved promoting alternate crops.

In 2010, the fungal blight appeared in multiple provinces and began to wipe out the crops. So far the fungus has worked well.

The report takes us to Uzbekistan, to a Soviet laboratory that was set up to conduct research into biological weapons. The laboratory was abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union but resumed operation with funding provided by US and British governments. It was in this laboratory that pleospora papaveracea, the fungus that affects opium poppies, was discovered, becoming the Soviet Union's first biological weapon.

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by MikeboydUS


My heart goes out to all of the innocent plants and drugs caught in the crossfire of human politics.

[not sarcasm]

reply to post by SmedleyBurlap


Yes, I agree there will ALWAYS be a black market, especially with the CIA and who knows whatever intelligence organization that use the illicit drug trade to raise funds.

But if the Americans were serious about stopping the flow of drug money going to the Taliban, they could come with a better solution. Which goes to show how serious they are.

BTW, is that a self-portrait?

reply to post by airspoon


I'm in Australia and in the last few years illegal import of Cocaine has risen 50%...

Thanks Uncle Sam.........

reply to post by ErEhWoN


It's a sketch of Boo Radley that I found on Google.

reply to post by ErEhWoN


I don't believe that the drug-money is going to the Taliban. Remember, the Taliban is a hard-line religious group and would see the money as going against god's will. This is why they all but stamped out poppy production when they ruled over the Texas sized country (or most of it anyway). This is also why they rejected the pipeline deal back in '97.

--airspoon