They lie to us

Plan Afghanistan and the war
on drugs

by Ed Felien

In the New York Times on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007, a headline read: “Taliban Push Poppy Production to a Record Again.” It seems we are meant to conclude that the Taliban are growing opium and pushing heroin on the youth of America. The lead sentence in the article confirms this supposition: “Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.” Much later in the article, David Rohde, the author, admits that only four or six of the 13 districts in Helmand are controlled by the Taliban. Most of the article describes a U.S. sponsored agricultural fair in Helmand meant to encourage farmers to grow alternative crops to opium poppies. This fairytale portrait of well-meaning Americans trying to lead Afghani farmers onto the straight and narrow seems almost too good to be true. And it is!

Contrary to the report in America’s newspaper of record, the truth about opium production in Afghanistan is quite the opposite of what the Times and the U.S. State Department want us to believe. We know the major reason the U.S. had so little trouble dislodging the Taliban in the 2002 invasion was because they had the active support of the Northern Alliance, the opium warlords that have ruled parts of Afghanistan for centuries. It was the same deal the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, made with the Mafia in Sicily. In exchange for Mafia assistance with the invasion of Sicily, the OSS helped get Lucky Luciano out of prison and set up secure traffic lanes for the Mafia to import heroin into New York.

When the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan they had almost eliminated opium production in their areas. They left the Northern Alliance pretty much alone but kept them in their own area. The Taliban did such a good job eliminating opium production in Afghanistan they were awarded a $43 million grant by the U.S. State Department on May 17, 2001 in appreciation of their achievement. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban we welcome.” Ironically, at the same time the State Department was awarding them a prize for eliminating opium production, the CIA was probably plotting with the Northern Alliance to reduced Afghanistan’s contribution to the global supply of opium from 70 percent in 2000 to 10 percent in 2001. After the U.S. invasion in 2002, opium production shot back up to and beyond pre-Taliban levels.

The U.S. has recently been talking about an opium reduction plan thatincludes spraying herbicides. This policy is similar to the one adopted in Colombia to use herbicides to reduce coca plants. Sounds great, until you realize the person in charge of the operation, the president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, has close ties to the cocaine drug cartels. A former mistress of Pablo Escobar, the late kingpin of cocaine in Colombia, claims Uribe’s father was one of the “first drug traffickers.” The International Herald Tribune reported in October of 2007: “A declassified U.S. intelligence report from 1991 described Uribe as a ‘close personal friend’ of Escobar’s. The report, by the Defense Intelligence Agency, also listed Uribe among Colombia’s important drug traffickers and said he was linked to an unidentified business involved in narcotics in the United States.” So, why would the president of Colombia, a man with strong ties to large growers and drug dealers, be such a strong supporter of Plan Colombia, a campaign to eliminate coca plants? The answer is simple. He’s using it to eliminate the competition. There is a civil war raging in Colombia, and it is a war between the large landowners and the small farmers. The large landowners are linked to the government and the army. They are using the spraying of herbicides and Plan Colombia to eliminate small growers.

Perhaps the most thorough, scholarly and readable analysis of opium production and the drug trade in Afghanistan is by Tamara Makarenko, “Crime, Terror and the Central Asian Drug Trade,” published in the Harvard Asia Quarterly, volume 6, number 3 (summer 2002). She points out that the Northern Alliance increased its opium production in just one of its areas from 2,458 hectares in 2000 to 13,000 hectares in 2002. She concludes: “It is, therefore, of great concern that members of the Northern Alliance constitute a considerable portion of the interim government due to its responsibility for increasing opium poppy cultivation by over 200 percent on their territories in 2001. Northern Alliance members in the Interior Ministry are now tasked with counter-narcotics initiatives. Furthermore, high-level officials in Kandahar, Helmand and the Defense Ministry are also allegedly tied to the drug trade. This situation is further exacerbated by numerous recent allegations that soldiers from the interim government’s security forces have been guarding drug markets.”

If the U.S. military wanted to stop opium production and drug trafficking in Afghanistan, surely they could put an end to it overnight. Why hasn’t this happened? Makarenko says: “Despite an international military presence, it does not appear as though drug mafias have been deterred from their business. This predicament can be explained by considering five general points. First, despite intelligence indicating the locations of drug production laboratories and alleged stockpiles, the international coalition—led by the U.S.—did not destroy these targets. The failure to directly engage with drugs as an essential component of the ‘war against terrorism’ signaled to those engaged in the drug trade that the international community has no serious intentions of destroying their business. Second, the involvement of high-ranking Afghani and Central Asian government and law enforcement officials in the trade ensures that drug dealers are able to participate in trade with relative impunity, although some risk will remain as governments make sporadic confiscations to appease Western observers. Third, given political sensitivity that Western troops are already facing on the ground, the international coalition does not appear willing to directly disrupt the drugs trade with military force. Once again, this inactivity merely gives traders additional freedom of movement to continue with their illicit operations. Fourth, although the international coalition has officially voiced its concern over the drug trade, they have made a concerted effort to avoid direct involvement in counter-narcotics efforts. Attempting to appear as though they are simultaneously dedicated in the eventual destruction of the trade, however, the coalition forces have followed alternative actions. Supported by the United Kingdom and the U.S., the interim government has attempted to entice farmers into destroying their opium poppy crops in exchange for U.S. $350 per 2,500 square meters. However, this initiative has merely frustrated farmers from recovering their losses last year as a result of the Taliban’s opium ban because the monetary alternative does not even cover the expenses incurred by farmers to grow their crops. In most drug-producing regions of Afghanistan, farmers normally receive up to U.S. $3,500 per 2,500 square meters of opium poppy cultivated. Finally, because Afghan heroin does not supply the U.S. market, it is difficult for the U.S. government to commit its military forces to counter-narcotics operations. Considering that the U.S. has had a difficult historical record with counter-narcotics initiatives in Latin America, it is also unlikely that similar efforts could work in Afghanistan.”

From this analysis it is clear that U.S. efforts are directed against small farmers and not against the large growers. The coalition forces have to be careful in their policy of protecting large growers and restraining small growers because if they antagonize the small farmers too much they could drive them into the arms of the Taliban. Recent fighting in Helmand province suggests that the Taliban may be getting enough support from the small farmers to encourage them to begin an offensive against coalition forces and the Northern Alliance.

I disagree with two points in Marenko’s analysis. First, she seems to think the U.S. is unaware of the implications of its policies. I would argue the U.S. State Department, the U.S. military and the CIA know exactly what is happening. Plan Afghanistan has the same objective as Plan Colombia: to turn the country into a narco-terrorist state ruled by the local drug mafia and dependent on U.S. military aid.
Second, she believes Afghan heroin does not reach the U.S. market.
Afghanistan has grown opium poppies for probably 4,000 years. The British forced Afghan opium on the Chinese in their successful Opium War in the 19th century, and it is true that Afghan opium has been and still is the principal source of opium and heroin for Europe. But it is also extremely probable that much of that opium also finds its way to European Mafias with American connections. Also, since the CIA is heavily involved in organizing the Afghan government and filling key ministerial positions with its drug-lord friends, it seems probable that the CIA would connect the Afghan Mafia to its longtime friends in the Sicilian and American Mafia. It is criminal negligence on the part of the U.S. government and the media to not present the facts of the Afghan opium production and U.S. complicity to the American public. Brave U.S. soldiers believe they are being sent to Afghanistan to defend freedom when, in reality, they are being used to protect gangsters and drug dealers.

This is a crime that cries out for justice.