Russia Lashes Out at NATO for Protecting Afghan Drug Production

reply to post by plumranch


Yeah I found this pretty interesting.
US disagrees with Russia on Afghan drugs

WASHINGTON: The United States has an “honest disagreement” with Russia over fighting drugs in Afghanistan but is cooperating with Moscow in other areas, a US official said Wednesday. President Barack Obama after taking office last year made a major policy shift by ending a military drive to destroy poppies, believing it alienated Afghanistan's poorest who only grew the crop to make money, reports AFP. “We had an honest disagreement about poppy eradication,” Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a news conference.

“The Russian government thinks that poppy eradication is the key; we think it was creating opportunities for the Taliban to recruit farmers,” he said. Holbrooke said the new emphasis on interdiction and destroying drug bazaars instead of crops was yielding “much greater success.” “We have done more damage to the drugs by this policy and we're no longer giving the Taliban a free recruiting tool,” he said.

You know is interesting you people say Taliban drug this Taiban drug that..

Last I checked prior to 9/11 the Taliban virtually decimated all poppy fields in Afghanistan.

A yr or 2 later opium production rose something like 800% i think..

Ya sounds like Taliban to me, it wouldn't be our own government now would it?

Lets look for them WMDs again maybe we might find them under the opuim fields that our soldiers are protecting..

I swear, get facts straight or don't say them at all..

And Russia is pissed cause they arent getting a cut of the pie.

Taliban Banns Opuim

UNITED NATIONS, May 18— The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.

The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season.

But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, and experts say it will not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to enforce it.

[edit on 2/28/2010 by ThichHeaded]

Originally posted by SLAYER69

“The Russian government thinks that poppy eradication is the key; we think it was creating opportunities for the Taliban to recruit farmers,” he said. Holbrooke said the new emphasis on interdiction and destroying drug bazaars instead of crops was yielding “much greater success.” “We have done more damage to the drugs by this policy and we're no longer giving the Taliban a free recruiting tool,” he said.

By this reasoning , the US should open wide the South border , and welcome
the Mexican Drug Lords in,

No need for Violence then.

reply to post by SLAYER69


They would probably enact a program similar to what they tried in morroco with the Hashish industry. Basically they gave farmers seeds and equipment to grow something other than cannabis (which is what the main- and only- ingredient in which hash is made from), but the crops eventually failed and the farmers ended up growing cannabis again. Personally i think if we legalize cannabis we could replace the poppy fields with cannabis plants for Industrial or Medicinal/recreational use. At least it doesn't kill people like heroin.

reply to post by maloy


Yeah I see what your saying.
Russia, US to step up drug fight

"The efficiency of international drug-fighting efforts in Afghanistan needs to be strengthened," Ivanov said. "We agreed that the result of our work should be a significant reduction in drug production in Afghanistan."

He criticized an international conference on stabilizing Afghanistan held in London last week for failing to offer specific steps to fight drug production in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan provides more than 90 percent of the heroin consumed in the world, and the bulk of it flows through ex-Soviet Central Asia and Russia.

Originally posted by DeathShield
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

They would probably enact a program similar to what they tried in morroco with the Hashish industry. Basically they gave farmers seeds and equipment to grow something other than cannabis (which is what the main- and only- ingredient in which hash is made from), but the crops eventually failed and the farmers ended up growing cannabis again. Personally i think if we legalize cannabis we could replace the poppy fields with cannabis plants for Industrial or Medicinal/recreational use. At least it doesn't kill people like heroin.

Oh wow, Just a FEW weeks back this topic would have been sh@t canned.


I agree, the Afghans will need another crop to offset the growth and sales. But what would be a good replacement? [Besides the US outsourcing it's cannabis] supply.

Same source

But some U.S. officials have called earlier crop eradication tactics ineffective and claimed that they boosted support for the Taliban. Instead, the Obama administration has focused on targeting drug labs and encouraging farmers to raise alternative crops.

[edit on 28-2-2010 by SLAYER69]

Originally posted by plumranch
For better or worse, everyone seems to either support or officially ignore the heroine production and the only ones apparently upset is the Russian government!

Europe isn't too thrilled either, since much of the heroin they get comes from Afghanistan as well. And then there is China.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Depends i guess. Cannabis is the only crop i know of that would flourish in that region. Many high-grade cannabis plants have their genetics sourced from plants in the Kush mountains. The industrial potential alone would be the most promising.

Originally posted by ThichHeaded
I swear, get facts straight or don't say them at all..

OK so you post a story from 2001. What has transpired in the past 9 years?

Your source.

The Taliban, who used to collect taxes on the movement of opium, is also losing money, adding another layer of difficulty for a government that is already isolated and not recognized diplomatically by most nations.

I read someplace. [I'm trying to locate the article] that they simply tried to raise the profit level by limiting the supply. Also they took power back in 1996 why did they wait so long to stop the production?

The areas in question are the areas the US recently attacked and took over from the Taliban.

US, Afghan forces clear last parts of Taliban area

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Marines and Afghan troops who fought through the center of Marjah linked up Saturday with American soldiers on the northern edge of the former Taliban stronghold, clearing the town's last major pocket of resistance.

Establishing a credible local government is a key component of NATO's strategy for the 2-week-old offensive on the Taliban's longtime logistical hub and heroin-smuggling center. Earlier in the week, the government installed a new town administrator, and several hundred Afghan police have begun to patrol the newly cleared areas of the town in the southern province of Helmand. After a grueling four-day march, Marines and Afghan troops succeeded Saturday in linking up with a U.S. Army Stryker battalion on Marjah's northern outskirts.

[edit on 28-2-2010 by SLAYER69]

Let me get this right, it is against the US laws to sell drugs and transports drugs illegally.
However, our CIA who is part of government are allowed to sell and transport drugs all over the world and to use our military to do it in many cases.

Do I see a double standard here?
No wonder everything is falling a part. We have people in the United States who think they are Gods, who think they are above ALL laws of ALL lands.
Why do we still have a CIA they do not sever any purpose any longer, they have become the worlds riches crime syndicate.

I say it’s time to clean house!

Originally posted by maloy

Originally posted by plumranch
For better or worse, everyone seems to either support or officially ignore the heroine production and the only ones apparently upset is the Russian government!

Europe isn't too thrilled either, since much of the heroin they get comes from Afghanistan as well. And then there is China.

Yup it's all part of the The Golden Triangle

At present, opium poppies are mostly grown in Afghanistan, and in Southeast Asia, especially in the region known as the Golden Triangle straddling Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Yunnan province in the People's Republic of China.

The opium crop in Afghanistan has a lot more to do with hurting China than hurting Russia.

The Italian Mafia, through the Turkish Connection relied heavily on Afghanistan for its heroin and to a lesser extent hashish and marijuana to dominate the American and European Market for Heroin.

Yet during the war in Indochina the French and then the Americans for political purposes started importing Heroin from the Golden Triangle through the CIA into America.

The CIA was careful to make sure that the Italians still got their cut but pretty much cut the French and the Turks out of this lucrative multi-billion dollar cash crop.

Yet when the war in Indochina was lost the Chinese Triads took over control over the Golden Triangle Opium Fields at the same time the Soviet War in Afghanistan was disrupting traditional supplies out of Afghanistan all but cutting the Italians and the Turks out of the picture. This had a huge impact on the Italian Mafia as well as the CIA who then had to start focusing more on Columbian Heroin and Cocaine to supply the American Domestic market and earn off the books cash for black operations that congress wouldn’t fund.

Yet the real problem occurred when Hong Kong the traditional home of the Triads reverted from British Rule to Chinese Rule completely cutting the British out of the picture and instead directly enriching the Chinese Communists who were able to almost totally dominate the Heroin Market with China White and earning not only most of the Heroin profits to be made but severely impoverishing the Italian Mafia, Turks, Brits, and the CIA all involved in the trade.

It became absolutely vital for Afghanistan to be opened back up to the CIA and the Italian Mafia as well and the Taliban was in fact not being very cooperative about that. There was some production coming out of the Northern Alliance that was fighting the Taliban but only enough to keep it funded in its fight against the Taliban for political and religious reasons of the former Northern Alliance Leader who was assassinated 2 days before September 11th.

The war in Afghanistan is about Heroin and an oil pipeline that the Taliban refused to allow built across Afghanistan for Royal Dutch Shell to export oil out of Kazakhstan, through Turkmenistan then Afghanistan on through Pakistan and the Sea to bypass the Russian pipeline network the Kazakhstanis were reliant upon.

The Taliban wasn’t playing ball on the Oil Pipeline or Heroin Production and some huge money was at stake, thank heavens the Bush family had such a friendly relationship with the Bin Laden Family otherwise Heroin Junkies and Oil Junkies everywhere might have suffered!

Yes to some it was a true 9-11 situation, pardon the pun.
Keeping the Chinese and Golden Triangle Heroin off and out of the market is a very important thing to some people.


[edit on 28/2/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

reply to post by SLAYER69


Alternatives to the poppy aren't competitive especially in a countryside at war!

Afghanistan - Agriculture

Agricultural products accounted for about 53% of Afghanistan's exports in 2001, of which fruits and nuts were a large portion. In some regions, agricultural production had all but ceased due to destruction caused by the war and the migration of Afghans out of those areas. A law of May 1987 relaxed the restrictions on private landowning set in 1978: the limit of permitted individual holding was raised from 6 to 18 hectares (from 15 to 45 acres). Opium and hashish are also widely grown for the drug trade. Opium is easy to cultivate and transport and offers a quick source of income for impoverished Afghans. Afghanistan was the world's largest producer of raw opium in 1999 and 2000. In 2000 the Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation but failed to destroy the existing stockpile and presumably benefited substantially from resulting price increases. Later, in 2001, the Taliban reportedly announced that poppy cultivation could resume. Read more: Agriculture - Afghanistan - crops www.nationsencyclopedia.com...

Sure you can grow some fruits and nuts but they aren't going to make much money and are much harder to produce. Not only that but Karzai condones heroin production as does the Taliban!

Later, in 2001, the Taliban reportedly announced that poppy cultivation could resume.

reply to post by December_Rain



Those fields should have been among the first to go. We are spending millions on aid to the area in an effort to make friends and gain supporters. Why not pay the very small price the original growers are getting for these crops and be done with them.

We must be getting a nice little kick back (a bribe) from the final sale of these drugs to other countries including our own. Why else let them grow?

Even the growers themselves say it is the only way for them to make a little money. They will grow another crop if someone is willing to pay the same price for it. It is those who come and get the crops who are making the first big payoff and with each passage toward the individual more money is made.
This is a business that has like 20 middlemen, taking a slice and hiking the price.

They could make more on crops like vanilla and macadamias if they can get them to grow. Why not indoor greenhouses?

[edit on 28-2-2010 by rusethorcain]

reply to post by December_Rain


And this when the UN is criticizing Canada for its medicinal medicine use of another natural growing vegetation of this earth.

No one has the authority or the right to deem anything natural is illegal, we are sovereign. Totally eliminating all illegal substances will also eliminate the cia and nazi/illuiminati drug trade, and release alot of innocent people who should not be in jail, or fined. Then, I want to see the bankers and governments, media elite and judges, imprisoned for TREASON, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, FASCISM, FRAUD, EXTORTION, EMBEZZLEMENT, AND CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CRIMES.

We will win. This world will be free.


[edit on 28-2-2010 by Unity_99]

Whats really ***king over the Russians , is that now the price has probably doubled per kilo.

Now that the warlords have new "business partners" looking after their crops, they can ask what they want,

The big boys who buy it in bulk from Afghanistan now have to pay much more, and the part the politicians receive to look the other way is probably much less as a consequence..this leading to all the complaints.

[edit on 1-3-2010 by andy1972]

This is some interesting material! I have thought about this underlying disaster on the horizon much, concerning the narcotics trade in Afghanistan. However, is it too late to perform any acts of substance to severely weaken the heroin trade in Afghanistan? When you think about it, this crucial problem should have been on the agenda as well as ousting the Taliban and routing Al-Qaeda in 2001, but it appears the DEA and the military force had to play catch-up to tackle the problem? It may have begun as a snow ball, but later became an avalanche?

As the US military tried to consolidate their gains, the Afghan warlords took to the opium trade as they had done before the Taliban virtually eradicated that lucrative enterprise. Out of the confusion caused by war, this enterprise was allowed to go on virtually unchecked for years until any major effort was taken by the US to stem the problem. Now the problem is as large as Mount Everest, with a sophisticated distribution network that spans the world. As large as this problem has become, any action by the US and its NATO allies would be like a bee stinging an elephant.

The Russians have much to be concerned about, because as has been stated on this thread previously, this is how the insurgency in Chechnya is being funded. Plus, it contributes to the addiction problem, like the disaster alcohol has caused since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The West has a lot to be concerned about as well, because these drugs are ending up on the streets of European and American cities, and is only exasperating their individual drug problems even further. Then it funds the terrorist groups they are at war with as well.

There is another thing about this mess that is strange? What about the mountains of cash leaving Afghanistan and being sent to Dubai? There is no doubt a bulk of it is tied to the Afghan drug trade. I have yet to see any mention of this on the thread. This particular development is concerning as well. We are talking about billions of dollars as the article cited below shows.

KABUL -- A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan -- often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport -- as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money's origin.

. . . the volume of the outflow has stirred concerns that funds have been diverted from aid. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, for its part, is trying to figure out whether some of the money comes from Afghanistan's thriving opium trade. And officials in neighboring Pakistan think that at least some of the cash leaving Kabul has been smuggled overland from Pakistan.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Given the recent revelations about President Hamid Karzai and the corruption allegations. Some of this mystery money may be tied to him and beyond? Who knows what is below the rabbit hole of corruption? Perhaps, even the US government is afraid to see what is at the end of that money trail? Here is a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, "The Wire," and it sums up this crucial element of cash, and in the case of Afghanistan, the sea of undeclared money most likely coming from the narcotics trade and ending up in the bank accounts of some powerful figures?

The quote comes from season one, and it is by one of the detective characters on a drug investigation. Their investigation was getting dangerously close to tying some of the drug money to politically powerful figures in Baltimore where the show takes place, and beyond . . .

Det. Lester Freamon: You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the [insert expletive] it's gonna take you.

www.imdb.com...

They never really got that far into that part of the investigation. As they announced their discoveries to superiors, the bureaucratic roadblocks came up to stop them, because the investigation became political. Perhaps, the US government will play the out of sight out of mind game on this one? As massive as this problem has become, it will take a miracle to keep Afghanistan from turning into a Narco-state. From what you all have compiled, it appears the writing is on the wall? Keep up the good work, and very interesting!


[edit on 1-3-2010 by Jakes51]

www.zeit.de...

german firms that supply the troops with diesel are also allegedly involved in drugs smuggling..and nato have supposedly known for years and done nothing..the boss of this german company (Ecolog AG) is a mazadonien who is well known as a sort of mafia boss...and he gets this contract to supply diesel..clean clothes and get rid of the armys rubbish.....thats all you need to know really...its perfect...



here a rough translation:

www.balkanforum.org...


[edit on 1-3-2010 by alienesque]

reply to post by Jakes51


One of the problems also is Jakes51 is that the largely rural and largely agrarian Afghani people have an average per capita income of only 300.00 per year or about 25.00 dollars a month.

There is no industry in Afghanistan and its a country that's basically been torn apart by one form of war since 1980.

Poppies are one of the few things that can be grown as a cash export crop of any value.

If you rip them all up, most of Afghanistan is already starving and then the rest will too.

A lot of the people in the Karzai Government are also tied to the drug trade and the truth is that the Karzai Government was reelected under massive allegations of voter fraud, and is friendly to a U.S. and NATO Bombing Campaign that is ravaging the country side.

Those same politicians and officials tied to the heroin trade would likely be far less friendly to NATO and Coallition War efforts if they took away the lucrative opium/heroin trade.

It's a very convoluted situation, and the truth is that opium production has increased 900 fold since the U.S. Invasion.

It is in many ways what is keeping Afghanistan from starving to death during decades of war, and creates corrupt politicians that will play ball with American officials.

It is what it is, but what it is sure ain't pretty.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Still, I think if the US would have thought about the resurgence of opium cultivation along with ousting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in 2001, perhaps the problem would be much smaller and more manageable than it is now? From what I have read about the response up until now, it was a lack luster effort by the US and NATO to keep the problem from reaching unmanageable levels.



If the alternative crop cultivation idea was introduced at the start of the war, maybe there would be an infrastructure, distribution network, and other elements in place for crops other than the poppy to be profitable?

However, like you say, it is what is, and the Afghan's have to do something to feed their families. I guess what I am getting at here, is during the Iraq War most of the government funds and energy went to that particular conflict as Afghanistan wallowed in abstract poverty and terror. It is only obvious that the Taliban would resurface, a black market would emerge, corruption would entrench itself in every facet of governance, and once again, the poppy would become the cash crop. Now, the problem is beyond repair, because there was not enough effort to stop the drug problem to begin with. This country could very well become what Columbia was in the 80's and how Mexico is now. Very good observations!


[edit on 1-3-2010 by Jakes51]