CIA’s Drug Trafficking History and Opium Greed Keeping US Troops in Afghanistan
It’s a shame nobody talks about Afghanistan anymore, considering how it remains to be the longest military quagmire in US history. Aside from troops still occupying the country, thousands of private contractors are on the ground that the Pentagon can’t even account for. Considering how Obama’s foreign policy strategy has been replacing ground troops with drone strikes, his administration’s logic behind continuing the occupation remains unclear.
War has always been about two things: resources and control. Alongside the supposed surprise discovery of Afghanistan’s $1 trillion wealth of untapped minerals, the Taliban had successfully eradicated the opium crop in the Golden Crescent before the US invaded. Now, more than 90% of the world’s heroin comes from the war torn country.
As reported by Global Research:
“Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored…By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000. In 2001, under the Taliban opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.”
After more than twelve years of military occupation, Afghanistan’s opium trade isn’t just sustaining itself, it’s thriving more than ever before. According to a recent report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 2013 saw opium production surge to record highs:
“The harvest this May resulted in 5,500 metric tons of opium, 49 percent higher than last year and more than the combined output of the rest of the world.”
Wow, that’s a lot of heroin – and a lot of money being made. So… who is reaping the spoils?
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How Opium Greed is Keeping US Troops in Afghanistan
Many people outright dismiss the notion of the CIA overseeing the trade of illegal drugs as crazy. However, history reveals that it’s crazy to not entertain such a notion, especially during times of war profiteering.
During the fifties, the CIA turned a blind eye to drug trafficking through the Golden Triangle while training Tibetan troops against Communist China. As William Blum reports in Rogue State:
“The CIA flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia, to sites where the opium was processed into heroin, and to trans-shipment points on the route to Western customers.”
Shockingly, this is far from an isolated incident. Perhaps the best documented example of the CIA running drugs was during the Iran-Contra scandal. During the eighties, the CIA financially and logistically backed anti-communist contras in Nicaragua who also happened to be international drug traffickers.
Former Representative Ron Paul even admitted to this black mark of the CIA’s notoriously corrupt past to a group of students:
“[Drug trafficking] is a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can’t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings. We saw [Iran-Contra] on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back.”
“[Drug trafficking] is a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can’t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings. We saw [Iran-Contra] on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back.”
I explain why CIA drug ties during Iran-Contra aren’t just a theory on Breaking the Set:
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Iran-Contra and the CIA’s Cocaine Trafficking
So, is there documented proof of the CIA running black tar heroin out of Afghanistan? No, but it’s slightly hard for me to believe that a region under full US military occupation – with guard posts and surveillance drones monitoring the movements over the mountains of Tora Bora – wouldn’t be able to detect supply routes of opium exported from the country’s various poppy farms (you know, the ones the US military are guarding).
In today’s globalized world of rule-for-profit, one can’t discount the role that multinational corporations play in US foreign policy decisions. Not only have oil companies and private military contractors made a killing off the occupation: big pharmaceutical companies, which collectively lobby over 250 million dollars annually to Congress, need opium latex to manufacture drugs for this pill happy nation. Furthermore, the recent HSBC bank scandal exposed how trillions of dollars in black market sales are brazenly being laundered through offshore banks.
Shockingly enough, foreign military officials have even confirmed that opium production is precisely why the US is in Afghanistan. Speaking to RT in 2009, former commander in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, General Mahmut Gareev, said:
“Americans themselves admit that drugs are often transported out of Afghanistan on American planes. Drug trafficking in Afghanistan brings them about 50 billion dollars a year – which fully covers the expenses tied to keeping their troops there…[the US military doesn't] have any planned military action to eliminate the [Taliban].”
The unwinnable nature of the Afghanistan war becomes even more apparent when learning that Hamid Karzai, a notable player in Afghanistan’s opium trade, had been receiving regular payments from the CIA since the invasion. Even more infuriating, the US government had been paying Taliban insurgents to protect supply routes and to “switch sides” in a poor attempt to neutralize the insurgency and buy loyalty from the fighters. The fundamental logic of funding both sides of the war to “win” is possibly the most incomprehensible concept to grasp. Clearly, this war is meant to be sustained– not won.
US public support for the ongoing war may not be high, but believe me, multinational corporations are in it for the long haul. In fact, a little mentioned strategic pact has already been signed that will allow a US troop presence to remain in Afghanistan until 2024.
Baseless rhetoric and propaganda aside, here’s the cold hard truth: this government is fighting a multi-billion dollar ‘War on Drugs’ worldwide, with millions of non violent drug users rotting away in prison. Yet on the other hand, the US is at the very least nurturing the largest source of the deadliest and most addictive drug on the planet. Now you tell me what the Afghanistan War is really about.
Written by Abby Martin for Media Roots
Photo by Flickr user Beggs, thanks to Sherwood Ross for the quotes
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