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Title: Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time [Litvinenko mentioned]
Source:
Daily Mail
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li ... 70&in_page_id=1770&expand=true
Published: Jul 21, 2007
Author: CRAIG MURRAY
Post Date: 2007-07-23 23:27:00 by rack42
Keywords: Afganistan, heroin, Litvinenko
Views: 132
Comments: 21
This week the 64th British soldier to die in Afghanistan, Corporal Mike Gilyeat, was buried. All the right things were said about this brave soldier, just as, on current trends, they will be said about one or more of his colleagues who follow him next week. The alarming escalation of the casualty rate among British soldiers in Afghanistan – up to ten per cent – led to discussion this week on whether it could be fairly compared to casualty rates in the Second World War. But the key question is this: what are our servicemen dying for? There are glib answers to that: bringing democracy and development to Afghanistan, supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai in its attempt to establish order in the country, fighting the Taliban and preventing the further spread of radical Islam into Pakistan. But do these answers stand up to close analysis? There has been too easy an acceptance of the lazy notion that the war in Afghanistan is the 'good' war, while the war in Iraq is the 'bad' war, the blunder. The origins of this view are not irrational. There was a logic to attacking Afghanistan after 9/11. Afghanistan was indeed the headquarters of Osama Bin Laden and his organisation, who had been installed and financed there by the CIA to fight the Soviets from 1979 until 1989. By comparison, the attack on Iraq – which was an enemy of Al Qaeda and no threat to us – was plainly irrational in terms of the official justification. So the attack on Afghanistan has enjoyed a much greater sense of public legitimacy. But the operation to remove Bin Laden was one thing. Six years of occupation are clearly another. Few seem to turn a hair at the officially expressed view that our occupation of Iraq may last for decades. Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell has declared, fatuously, that the Afghan war is 'winnable'. Afghanistan was not militarily winnable by the British Empire at the height of its supremacy. It was not winnable by Darius or Alexander, by Shah, Tsar or Great Moghul. It could not be subdued by 240,000 Soviet troops. But what, precisely, are we trying to win? In six years, the occupation has wrought one massive transformation in Afghanistan, a development so huge that it has increased Afghan GDP by 66 per cent and constitutes 40 per cent of the entire economy. That is a startling achievement, by any standards. Yet we are not trumpeting it. Why not? The answer is this. The achievement is the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen. The Taliban had reduced the opium crop to precisely nil. I would not advocate their methods for doing this, which involved lopping bits, often vital bits, off people. The Taliban were a bunch of mad and deeply unpleasant religious fanatics. But one of the things they were vehemently against was opium. That is an inconvenient truth that our spin has managed to obscure. Nobody has denied the sincerity of the Taliban's crazy religious zeal, and they were as unlikely to sell you heroin as a bottle of Johnnie Walker. They stamped out the opium trade, and impoverished and drove out the drug warlords whose warring and rapacity had ruined what was left of the country after the Soviet war. That is about the only good thing you can say about the Taliban; there are plenty of very bad things to say about them. But their suppression of the opium trade and the drug barons is undeniable fact. Now we are occupying the country, that has changed. According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60 per cent. This year will be even bigger. Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations. It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops. How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect. When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons – especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance – to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers. President Karzai is a good man. He has never had an opponent killed, which may not sound like much but is highly unusual in this region and possibly unique in an Afghan leader. But nobody really believes he is running the country. He asked America to stop its recent bombing campaign in the south because it was leading to an increase in support for the Taliban. The United States simply ignored him. Above all, he has no control at all over the warlords among his ministers and governors, each of whom runs his own kingdom and whose primary concern is self-enrichment through heroin. My knowledge of all this comes from my time as British Ambassador in neighbouring Uzbekistan from 2002 until 2004. I stood at the Friendship Bridge at Termez in 2003 and watched the Jeeps with blacked-out windows bringing the heroin through from Afghanistan, en route to Europe. I watched the tankers of chemicals roaring into Afghanistan. Yet I could not persuade my country to do anything about it. Alexander Litvinenko – the former agent of the KGB, now the FSB, who died in London last November after being poisoned with polonium 210 – had suffered the same frustration over the same topic. There are a number of theories as to why Litvinenko had to flee Russia. The most popular blames his support for the theory that FSB agents planted bombs in Russian apartment blocks to stir up anti-Chechen feeling. But the truth is that his discoveries about the heroin trade were what put his life in danger. Litvinenko was working for the KGB in St Petersburg in 2001 and 2002. He became concerned at the vast amounts of heroin coming from Afghanistan, in particular from the fiefdom of the (now) Head of the Afghan armed forces, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in north and east Afghanistan. Dostum is an Uzbek, and the heroin passes over the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, where it is taken over by President Islam Karimov's people. It is then shipped up the railway line, in bales of cotton, to St Petersburg and Riga. The heroin Jeeps run from General Dostum to President Karimov. The UK, United States and Germany have all invested large sums in donating the most sophisticated detection and screening equipment to the Uzbek customs centre at Termez to stop the heroin coming through. But the convoys of Jeeps running between Dostum and Karimov are simply waved around the side of the facility. Litvinenko uncovered the St Petersburg end and was stunned by the involvement of the city authorities, local police and security services at the most senior levels. He reported in detail to President Vladimir Putin. Putin is, of course, from St Petersburg, and the people Litvinenko named were among Putin's closest political allies. That is why Litvinenko, having miscalculated badly, had to flee Russia. I had as little luck as Litvinenko in trying to get official action against this heroin trade. At the St Petersburg end he found those involved had the top protection. In Afghanistan, General Dostum is vital to Karzai's coalition, and to the West's pretence of a stable, democratic government. Opium is produced all over Afghanistan, but especially in the north and north-east – Dostum's territory. Again, our Government's spin doctors have tried hard to obscure this fact and make out that the bulk of the heroin is produced in the tiny areas of the south under Taliban control. But these are the most desolate, infertile rocky areas. It is a physical impossibility to produce the bulk of the vast opium harvest there. That General Dostum is head of the Afghan armed forces and Deputy Minister of Defence is in itself a symbol of the bankruptcy of our policy. Dostum is known for tying opponents to tank tracks and running them over. He crammed prisoners into metal containers in the searing sun, causing scores to die of heat and thirst. Since we brought 'democracy' to Afghanistan, Dostum ordered an MP who annoyed him to be pinned down while he attacked him. The sad thing is that Dostum is probably not the worst of those comprising the Karzai government, or the biggest drug smuggler among them. Our Afghan policy is still victim to Tony Blair's simplistic world view and his childish division of all conflicts into 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. The truth is that there are seldom any good guys among those vying for power in a country such as Afghanistan. To characterise the Karzai government as good guys is sheer nonsense. Why then do we continue to send our soldiers to die in Afghanistan? Our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is the greatest recruiting sergeant for Islamic militants. As the great diplomat, soldier and adventurer Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Alexander Burnes pointed out before his death in the First Afghan War in 1841, there is no point in a military campaign in Afghanistan as every time you beat them, you just swell their numbers. Our only real achievement to date is falling street prices for heroin in London. Remember this article next time you hear a politician calling for more troops to go into Afghanistan. And when you hear of another brave British life wasted there, remember you can add to the casualty figures all the young lives ruined, made miserable or ended by heroin in the UK. They, too, are casualties of our Afghan policy.
Poster Comment: Did the recent Bush-Putin meeting in Maine have anything to do with Litvinenko?
Head of the Afghan armed forces: General Abdul Rashid Dostrum
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#1. To: rack42 (#0)
I don't know, but I would bet a lot of money that drugs, and the profit therefrom, were certainly a part of the discussion. There is more than enough evidence about the CIA, and the Bush family, being involved in drugs. But the real story of drugs is the Brits, and their control of the international trade in so-called illegal drugs that goes back nearly 300 years. Any history of the Dutch East Indies Company is replete with info about this. And that does not mention the Dutch West Indies Company. There have been many, many books written on this subject, and to top that off, then you have Russia, and the evidence is pretty compelling that the real reason that Russia invaded Afganistan is because it has perhaps the best climate in the world for producing opium. Most people never knew, and the others seldom remember, that when Russia invaded Afganistan the government of Afganistan had been Communist and allied with Russia for some time.
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
This was a cleverly disguised anti-Putin hitpiece, pretending to be one thing when in fact it was another.
It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops. How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect. they are also fighting and dying to make profits for the Cocaine Importing Agency: "...1980s to early 1990s, AFGHANISTAN ClA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported govemment and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and 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. US officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operabon 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......" The Real Drug Lords A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade by William Blum.... William Blum is author of Killing Hope: U.S Military and CIA Interventions Since World War ll..... http://www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/ben/news/cia/970504.hist.html ===================================== The "United States" Isn't a Country; It's a Corporation! "....."Do you think that any soldier who died in any of our many wars would have fought if he or she had known the truth? Do you think one person would have laid down his/her life for a corporation?...." http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/8-12-03/discussion.cgi.70.html
very important article, Rack42
that is very interesting. I remember the plane shoot-down of the KAL flight back in 1983 or so when that Georgia congressman McDonald was taken out. That was an operation that required cooperation between the US & the USSR. It was carried off as though they were enemies, but in reality they worked together to carry it off. About 6 congressmen were scheduled to make that flight & 5 cancelled at the last minute, including some at the airport shortly before it left. and a Tokyo journalist says he talked to a Russian military officer who said the plane had landed safely in shallow water and that the passengers were getting off all safe including the congressman. And there was no wreckage on the beach in north Japan. That means it simply didn't crash in the water, if it did then the wreckage would come to the beach and people would've found it - as they did in a previous crash in that area. So, the USSR & the US can achieve that level of cooperation - and yet they pretend to be rivals. A clique at the top in both countries is allied.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The "United States" Isn't a Country; It's a Corporation! "....."Do you think that any soldier who died in any of our many wars would have fought if he or she had known the truth? Do you think one person would have laid down his/her life for a corporation?...." if they only knew the truth...
i believe that to be true.
That's because according to Brum, a joint US Japanese effort was undertaken to retrieve all wreckage before it washed ashore; any that did and was found by Japanese fisherman was immediately confiscated by the navies. Red, you may be interested in this....A French aeronautical type analyses the downing....he never got much headway and credibility stateside, but at the least, a very good read, provocative and thought provoking..... http://www.amazon.com/Incident-Sakhalin-True-Mission- Flight/dp/1568580541 From Publishers Weekly Brun, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, presents here the result of a decade's research into the 1983 destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by Soviet fighters over the Sea of Japan. He describes the tragedy as part of a clandestine U.S. operation to test Soviet air defense capabilities. Flight 007 was a Trojan horse whose destruction occurred in the context of near- simultaneous violations of Soviet air space by American planes, resulting in a sharp clash between the superpowers' aircraft. When the gamble that a civilian airliner would be safe did not pay off, the U.S. embarked on a comprehensive cover-up that endures to the present
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
that is very interesting. 13 stripes too. and it was made in 1707. long before the American flag. I've learned that when they tell us an elaborate & unnecessary story in our history books it is for a reason. They long-ago inculcated the story into our popular mind about Betsy Ross coming up with the idea for our flag in some sort of an informal contest or effort to figure out a flag. maybe someone whispered it in her ear and she did it. 13 stripes. why? because of the old testament stories about 12 tribes of israel plus a lost tribe I believe. Something like that. and if you count the countries of south america you may find 13. why? because the european powers drew the maps, that's why.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
That is quite interesting. Never seen that before. 13 bars...... ummmm. Could very well be for the Thirteenth Tribe. Unlike how little we understand, the Khazars know their heritage very well. "Mr Benjamin Freedman, a Jewish industrialist born in New York, wrote in the Economic Council Letter published there of October 15 1947: "These Eastern European Jews have neither a racial nor a historic connection with Palestine. Their ancestors were not inhabitants of the Promised Land. They are the direct descendants of the people of the Khazar Kingdom.. The Khazars were a non Semitic, Turko Mongolian tribe.." Mr Freedman was challenged, unwisely, by a Zionist objector...he invited his challenger to go with him to the Jewish room of the New York Public Library. There they could together examine the Jewish Encyclopedia volume I pp. 1 12, and the published works of Graetz, Dubnow, Friedlander, Raisin and many other noted Jewish historians, which, as well as other non Jewish authorities, "establish the fact beyond all possible doubt".’ (Somewhere South of Suez (1950) pp349 350)." The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
Russia had worked with the Communist party of Afganistan for some time, giving military training, arms and supplies, so that when the Afgan government was overthrown, the Communists stepped in and assumed power. Russia, of course, had been building roads and dams etc. in Afganistan for about 20 years prior to the invasion in 1979. What is most interesting is that none of the roads, or other projects that they built, were worth a tinkers damn. All of the roads fell apart, EXCEPT the road and bridges that lead directly from the Russian border directly to the capital of Afganistan. The Russians also slaughtered all of the Communist cadre from Afganistan that they had trained and which was expecting help from Russia. Of course, from there, Russia's experience went down hill, a lot! Yes, you are correct. There is no doubt that there is a very close relationship between Russia and the US government behind the scenes.
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
The other option is that GW knew exactly what he was doing when Betsy Ross came up with the idea of using most of the flag of the world's biggest and most powerful corporation as representing the nascent republic. By the time of American Independence, one of the biggest gripes of the EIC grandees was that they had to deal with pesky rulers, subjects and local laws when making money for God, King and Country. The scenario of a brand new country devoted to expansionism and commercialism being created on North American Continent would have appealed to their mercantile instincts. Though people do have a hard time digesting the similarities of the flags; coincidence, they say. If it's walks like a duck.......
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
I think your analysis is very sound. I don't think it is a coincidence. And yes, it is quite possible George Washington manipulated to get the design desired by whoever wanted it. he was a mason. I like & respect George Washington. But there's a lot of things we don't know or understand about what's gone on. or going on. I long ago concluded that democracy is an ideology that is a fraud. the people don't rule. they are ruled over instead. confucius said 'the people are like long tall grass, they bow down for the wind'. and also there is instruction in the bible that it is god who appoints kings to rule the nation and then the people follow such appointed kings. and I don't think the revolution of 1776-1781 really fundamentally changed the way people are. they're sheep and we all know it.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Thanks for this information. I've seen bits and pieces before, but back then I was too busy working for a living to pay attention.
That was one of the first conspiracies I ever heard. Wasn't Nixon warned off that flight?
Ron Paul for President
One telling point is that after his defeat at Yorktown, Cornwallis was sent to India as Viceroy, putting him in charge of one of biggest sources of wealth for the British Empire, along with the Caribbean, if not the biggest. Certainly not a position assigned out of disgrace. Whatever his connections at the Royal Court, becoming Viceroy(at the time being called Governor General) of India meant you joined what would eventually become a select club of perhaps no more that four dozen (including provisional caretakers) over the course of a couple of centuries.
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
Haven't heard that, but the propaganda and PR boon for the USA was inestimable.
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
That story is being called KGB disinfo according to most "reputable" sources. Among those killed on KAL007: http://houston.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=40311 Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the 1983 Korean Airlines 747 (flight KAL007) that was shot down by the Soviets, said: "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and communism under the same tent, all under their control...Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." In 1981, Congressman Larry McDonald called for comprehensive congressional investigation of the CFR and Trilateral Commission. Congress is urged to investigate these organizations Zbignew Brezinski (CFR/TLC member and appointed National Security Advisor during Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1976) in his book “The Grand Chessboard” page 40: “To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together."
Ron Paul for President
Yes, but Brun's book provides enough info to make you go "hmmmm".....
The meek may inherit the earth -- but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty
Brun's book looks good; and I'm sure the CIA likes to kill two birds (or more) with one stone.
Ron Paul for President
Did the recent Bush-Putin meeting in Maine have anything to do with Litvinenko?
#2. To: rack42 (#0)
#3. To: rack42 (#0)
#4. To: rack42 (#0)
thank you for posting it
Love, Palo
#5. To: richard9151 (#1)
when Russia invaded Afganistan the government of Afganistan had been Communist and allied with Russia for some time.
#6. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#3)
#7. To: Red Jones (#5)
A clique at the top in both countries is allied.
#8. To: Red Jones, Aristeides, Fred_mertz (#5)
And there was no wreckage on the beach in north Japan.
#9. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#3)
Flag of the East India Company - one of a few variants, this one used from 1707 onwards... Earlier variation had a simple red cross on a whitebackground.
#10. To: swarthyguy (#9)
#11. To: swarthyguy (#9)
Flag of the East India Company
#12. To: Red Jones (#5)
that is very interesting.
#13. To: Red Jones (#10)
(Edited)
They long-ago inculcated the story into our popular mind about Betsy Ross coming up with the idea for our flag
#14. To: swarthyguy (#13)
#15. To: swarthyguy (#8)
He describes the tragedy as part of a clandestine U.S. operation to test Soviet air defense capabilities.
#16. To: swarthyguy (#8)
#17. To: Red Jones (#14)
(Edited)
#18. To: robin (#16)
#19. To: swarthyguy (#18)
#20. To: robin (#19)
#21. To: swarthyguy (#20)
Brun, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, presents here the result of a decade's research into the 1983 destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by Soviet fighters over the Sea of Japan. He describes the tragedy as part of a clandestine U.S. operation to test Soviet air defense capabilities. Flight 007 was a Trojan horse whose destruction occurred in the context of near-simultaneous violations of Soviet air space by American planes, resulting in a sharp clash between the superpowers' aircraft.
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