Afghanistan's Government: A Big Albatross
By Jason Sigger Thursday Oct 29, 2009 6:00amIf you don't read anything else about Afghanistan, make sure that this NY Times article on President Karzai's brother is the one you read. It's a very interesting piece, and has implications far beyond the immediate shock waves that it will inevitably cause.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
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These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.
Now the fact that Mr. Karzai is profiting both from the drug trade and from supporting the CIA's operations is not in and of itself particularly amazing or outlandish to most people who understand the Afghani culture and who have to demonstrate short-term progress against the Taliban. A former CIA intel officer is quoted in the article:
“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”
The CIA has a long record of supporting bad actors in the name of getting intelligence or achieving progress against other countries whose goals are inimical to US interests, and that may be understandable in some situations, except when that practice runs counter to official US policy in those particular regions. The brother to the president of Afghanistan uses his position to profit from the drug trade and also is a prime suspect in trying to fix the election (in a disappointingly transparent and amateurish fashion). That might be acceptable except for the fact that he's not helping the US government advance its efforts to stabilize the country.
Our government's goals do not align with the brothers Karzai's goals. Mr. Karzai's interests are to protect the drug lords in the south provinces, who in turn pay and rely on the Taliban for protection. Those are the same provinces where US, British, and other forces are fighting and dying every day. Until the current Afghani government is replaced by a legitimate group which has a real desire to advance the Afghani people's needs and interests, there is no way that a strategy based on COIN tactics will work. And if there is no way that COIN tactics will work, then there is no reason to support Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000+ additional troops.
Of course, there is the possibility that our government's actual goal is to develop Afghanistan into "a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012."
(This is a follow-up on Heather's earlier post on same subject)
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I wonder who leaked this to the NYT, State, Pentagon, or someone in the Afghan govt? Also is there some backscratching going on between him and the CIA over the lame eradication of poppie fields since the invasion.
The run-off is but days away and it looks like they "need" Abdullah Abdullah to win.
After all, if Karzai won there would definitely be cries of "Fraud!!!"
Obama said that in order for him to make a decision on placing 40,000 more AMERICAN
sitting ducksAmericans into Afghanistan there will have to be a run-off election relatively free of fraud and a government in place that is "legitimate".For me, I say that regardless of what happens during that election we need to GTF outta there....like, NOW.
And we shouldn't be in Pakistan either. Our military presence in ANY of these countries does nothing but give the Taliban a recruiting tool.
Let the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan get rid of the Taliban themselves.
The US or Nato should spray the poppy fields with defoliant. They finance the people we are fighting. Yes, that will piss off a lot of so called allies. So what? They aren't worth having as allies.
1.3 BILLION dollars to pay them not to shoot/IED us? They say this is a time honored method of getting cooperation. I'd say it is a sure way to get more people killed in the long run. The USA is really looking like Rome in its dying years.
Add to this the Craig Murray account on Uzbekistan, here. The US involvement in the region is a sordid one.
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End the wars and dismantle the Corporate Perpetual War Machine (aka MIC and CIA et al), tout de suite.
............Mafia Petroleum still shoving their HELLPIPELINE down countries' throats whether they 'want' it or not!!!! This is HELLPIPELINE a shinning example of predatory Empire for BLOODYISRAEL, because the delivery point for the HELLPIPELINE is BLOODYISRAEL!
thanks for the read. in case you haven't listened to murray's interview on the realnews.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
Let's also not forget that the only group that was able to maintain independence against the Taliban and their anti-opium jihad was the Northern Alliance, which was completley funded by poppies and Poppy's ex-"company." Who did we turn to when the Taliban wouldn't play ball with M. Karzai, the Unocal negotiator? Why, that very same Northern Alliance, that's who.
*WE* are to blame for the explosion of opium production in Afghanistan. There's little need to clutch our pearls in shock at what that s-hole has become.
The Bush family has long been involved in the opium/heroin trade. Just why do you think they had two governors in two drug-trade states, the head of the CIA, and two presidents? George I went to work for the Bin Laden family when he left office--check the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to verify. OK, so it was Arabia, but the Taliban and AlQaeda are spread across the Islamic front.
The CIA and military brass were smuggling heroin in Vietnam.
The primary reason for relaxing border security was to get Middle Easterners, disguised as Mexicans, into this country with the drugs. Now the Mexicans can run their own rackets, and the USA has eighth-grade heroin addicts.
One of the Shrub's great-uncles sat in a house not five miles away from where I sit now, and ran heroin rackets in E. TN and N. GA for years. DEA didn't get him, the IRS did.
So, now the military and the Goobiernos are snuggled up to another opium lord. They will get away with it, for the same reason the local heroinista did, because, as one jurywoman said, "Only (the "N" word, plural) use that stuff, anyway". It wasn't true then, it isn't true now, but it's a prevailing and racist belief which must be conquered if we are to keep this nation free from this particular drug of enslavement.
And if Obama has the sense of a housecat, he will take action now or stand accused of complicity.
so where the fuck is my opium man?
Where the fuck's my Hash?
Gee....maybe this is one of the reasons some of these guys want to re-up again and again and again:
http://www.newser.com/story/5406/us-troops-hi...
This video is so old....
http://www.gnn.tv/videos/video.php?id=1
If my quik time plugin wasn't broken i would watch it again.
It is called Crack the CIA, Pottv also did a piece on the CIA. Our own government deals drugs to us that are illegal, made illegal by them. It is a big awsome giant machine, using human addictions and weakness as fuel.
The tea Baggers need stomped back to hell from wich they came, so we can get back to cleaning the Government up.
..............read a long article about 10yrs. ago written by an ex-CIA agent who was blowing the whistle on that Black Op. He's probably dead, suicide, sm. plane crash, etc., take your pick, but the bottom line is that the CIA assinated him. Way too talkative, you know.
:D
I know, keep your mouth shut, get in line, do not question authority, just have faith.
Believe me I know!
My mouth won't shut till I am dead, tho. Oh well.
That cocain crowd around here will shut your hole if you get too close. All needs legalized period.
Wasn't his name Chip something or other?
I found it in YOUTUBE is called CRACK THE CIA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYOVQezWaCY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwpbQSCORUo
Then I got high...
.
I left a comment, thanks. Why weren't our soldiers bombing them fields with nuclear waste and fire ???
Oh yea, that's CIA fundage.
I thought "Afghanistan Government" was an oxymoron?
Karzai does control about 3 square blocks in Kabul. . .
but the most important 3 square blocks, and they are his, all his
they need a cyrus
"Can You Dig IT!!!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DteP_VQK1Z8&fe...
don't the big pharmas buy Afghan opium for pain killers and create a legal market. Of course that may take revenue away from some corporate farm that they own.
Somehow I doubt that all US medical opium is US-grown. Most may well be synthetic, however.
They cant get a patent on a plant that already exists, no patent no money just for Big Pharma. Big pharma instead said that morphine was too addictive and invented pain meds that they could collect patent money on, like Oxy, you know the non-addicting type of pain killer.
be able to patent the plants, but you can patent the drugs derived from the plants. From Wikipedia: "Later, as with Aspirin, Bayer lost some of its trademark rights to 'heroin' under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles following the German defeat in World War I.[11]"
The heroin trade provides the CIA & other nefarious organizations with a steady supply of untraceable cash. This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. It also sedates anti-authority types & provides justification for the "war on drugs."
(public and private) fully loaded, supplying bodies to the "drug treatment" cottage industry, keeping demand for cops, probation/parole departments high, etc, etc...
on a niche market and corner the opium supply
they could own afghanistan with patent rights
Morphine, as far as I know, is the best pain med that can made from poppies and the patent on that has run out a long time ago.
As to the CIA finding a new source of money that they dont have to go to Congress for, OH YEA that will put a pickle in thier pocket.
Propping up a corrupt, ineffectual government that has no respect from its people...check.
Determined resistance, rooted in nativism and nationalism, that takes full advantage of inhospitable terrain...check.
Rules of engagement that make civilian casualities well-nigh unavoidable, with the concomitant resentment and fury...check.
This is sounding depressingly familiar.
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..............like Iraq's 'gov.' isn't one???? Afganistan, too, is a BOOOOOOOOOSH-POODLE!!!trong> HONDURAS with BLOODYISRAEL's 'financial community' there, that's NOT another albatross????? Honduras's coup has PUKIE prints all over it, in the whore Hillary's 'PR Firm' just 'helping out' there!
to pay the Taliban 1.3 billion to be on our side?
Shocked I am !!
CIA involvement with drug lords !!
Shocked! Shocked! Shocked!
http://sonic.net/~doretk/Issues/97-08%20AUG/c...
http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/DARKALLIANCE/
Laos, Afganistan in 80s/90s, Nicaragua in the 70s/80s and Afganistan now . . .
CIA and drugs is nothing new. . .
the tarp bailout
..burned the damn opium crops when found, caught and or killed obl and then come home. Oh well, that not what we went to do; we went to make sure a pipeline ran thru western afghanistan and that the MI complex would be profitable for years to come all the while fighting the war on the cheap. Way to go w, cheeney, rummy, wolfie, et.al.
F-ing bastards.
process all that opium then spray it all over Afghanistan daily like chem-trails no one will want to fight. Dealers and growers there will be happy to sell us the crops so they can live in high style in "The Kingdom" with a second mansion in Dubai.
fentanyl becomes the new heroin
oh wait...that fad passed in the 80's
can we spray the opium with human sh*t, would that make it less desirable? i think they are farming with it up in canada, so maybe that would not work. if i had my fix, i would be thinking better, so i will keep trying.
Luis, if you spray the Opium with shit it will grow bigger, faster stronger. Like putting out a fire with gasoline.
The Amish use human shit to grow that sweet corn, dude, lol.
are you mad?????
Everyone in the DEA Complex would lose their job and that would be bad for the economy.
When the US invaded Afghanistan there were NO OPIUM POPPY FIELDS !!
Why?
Because the Taliban had virtually wiped them all out!!
And of course that was totally unacceptable to the CIA Cowboys who profit from the world wide opium trade.
Maybe the REAL "pipe" line is the "veins" in people's arms.....
the Talbian and related fighters 12 to 1 and we're losing?
So the other day when about 10 or 11 Americans were killed by the Taliban (supposedly) three of the killed were DEA agents. So how does Obama tell their families that they were killed while they were trying to stop the opium trade all the while Obama's CIA is paying Karzai's brother who is an opium dealer. This just may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and gives Obama reason to get the hell out.
The US Military Industrial Complexhas always played both sides.
That way they can finance both sides, profit from both sides, and to a large extent determine the outcome.
Yes but now it is way out in the open. I wonder what the Palinista/Limbaugh/Beck wing of the Wingnut Party thinks about his. Does anybody know?
would have in a sovereign country such as Afghanistan? I'm assuming that as non-military personnel, they cannot be buried with military honors. Can their families sue the Feds for damages?
I believe that the DEA agents are non-combat government officials who volunteer or agree to a tour in country. As govvies, I would expect that they do get treated similarly to military causalties in at least they make it back to the United States in a casket. From there, not sure who picks up the tab for the burial ceremony.
The CIA has fomented or been involved in every troubling crisis in the world since the end of WWII. And, looking at a list of former CIA directors and their connections to to major US & Internat'l financial institutions is also a major 'clue'.
Here's just a few names of former CIA Directors you may be familiar with and their 'other' jobs:
Bill Casey >> SEC Chairman
George HW Bush >> US President, Carlyle Group,
First Int'l Bancshares
Buzz Krongard >>> Vice Chrmn. Banker's Trust,
Chrmn. A.B. Brown (investment bank)
William Colby >> Gen. Counsel Nugen Hand Bank, Household Bank
Bud McFarlane >> Bd. of American Equity Investors
Prescott Bush was a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, a big Wall St. bank. Here's a cool tool for investigating business relationships.
Thanks for the link. Is there any info other than the BushMAFI?? Like communications networks, newspapers, magazines, video, etc. ??
but the site hasn't been update very recently. Lots of stuff on the WaPo, Times, teevee networks, etc.
the mainpage. Here's some stuff on Katherine Graham & the WaPo.
I think that this part of the Afghanistan equation should be ramped up and kept on the front burner. I really think that it could mark the beginning of the end of the war in Afghanistan.
Hasn't this been known for a while? Karzai's brother on the payroll of CIA and a key figure in the Opium trade? Why is this a breaking story? Because the main stream media reported it?
How come Katie Couric never covered this shit on her Afghan success festival with Lara Logan over a year ago?
I resemble that remark!
I just found this and I am shaking in anger about it
http://powip.com/2009/10/tension/
"And yes, he did lie; the salute was inappropriate, since he never served in the military. A hand over his heart was what he should’ve done."
Is this correct? Any military here know?
And yeah, that's a low blow.
As the CinC of the armed forces it is totaly app, notice as the Prez gets on marine one he will salute the marine at the door of the chopper.
Thanks.
But spook agencies have been in bed with illegal drug cartels since capo Lucky Luciano gave the Office of Naval Intelligence info about Sicilian ports prior to the invasion of that island by the Allies in WW2. The connection never ended.
An excellent primer on the subject is Prof. Alfred McCoy's seminal "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia". Read it and realize that nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed all these decades since it was first written. The spooks are up to their eyeballs in the trade and that should surprise no one.
the circumstantial evidence is that the CIa has always promoted opium and heroin trafficking and trade, because it uses the insane profits to fund off the book operations and projects. Where ever the CIA establishes a strong presence, narcotic drug trafficking becomes a pervasive part of the landscape.
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