Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.
In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year — for a total of 5,644 metric tons — the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.
White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news “disappointing.”
What’s on your mind?
The utter stupidity of our ‘progressive’ side failing to recogbise that we’ve just begun the process of taking back our nation.
This ain’t TV and it don’ end on the half-hour.
Oh…yeah, the moronic hysteria surrounding the empty suit Barrack Obama.
An unelectable spokesman for the folks that brought you Joey the Liarmann.
speaking of Obama, he just said the other day that we simply can’t let Iran get WMD and may have to consider a little pre-emptive bombing to keep the world safe I guess..just another nail in his coffin as far as I’m concerned.
More proof of our “progress” in the war on terror.
The money graph from linked article:
from a related article by Jason Motlagh, “Time is on the Taliban’s side”
“Farmers of means bribe local-government officials for illicit growing rights, and those lacking money go into debt once their crops are destroyed. In some instances, farmers are compelled to replant poppies to repay outstanding debts; in others, government officials are said to drive out competing cartels for a percentage.”
Mr. Syed Saleem Shahzad, a recent ‘guest of the Taliban’ writes in The Asia Times (HK), link below, that it’s a missed opportunity for the U.S. Go read.
Imho, we’re unlikely to find additional troops from NATO members who are looking for an exit from Afghanistan. Like the other occupiers before us, the U.S. mission ‘pledging to Afghans a paradise on earth’ will not be accomplished in the rugged mountains ‘deep inside the kingdom of heaven.’
This shyt is going to wash up on OUR shores.
Sedate a large portion of the population, fill up the jails, and they can continue to hijack the nation.
NPR had a startling report on This Morning Weekend Edition, the jails are at 200% capacity.
You are 1000% right about the effects that these drugs will have on society. Prohibition gives criminals their license at the same time that it gives “aid and comfort” to our enemies. THE DRUG WAR IS TREASON AGAINST AMERICA
Not just the Republicans. Too many Democratic leaders in the Senate are career drug warriors. Joe Biden. John Kerry. Harry Reid. Hillary Clinton. It was Bill Clinton who gave America its world record prison population in the mid 1990’s. That was what propelled me to leave the Democrats and become an Independent.
There is hope and now is the time to start thinking about how to work with it. Congressman John Conyers of MI is the incoming chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Conyers is also on the advisory board of the Drug Policy Alliance which is the central drug policy reform coordinating organization in America. Conyers is the highest national elected official that drug policy reform has ever had on its side in government. And running Judiciary where he can really make a difference.
We can end this three dozen year drug war now if we figure out how to support John Conyers and encourage both him and our own representatives to confront this treasonous authoritarian policy.
Disappointing?
Not unexpected. If one looks at our war machine and our intelligence agencies since WWII there seems to be either drug traffic or oil involved.
When the CIA sent the Guerini Gang to break up the Communist dockworkers in post-WWII Marseilles, there soon developed the French Connection. We had Air America flying into the Golden Triangle with rice and weapons and flying out with opium. Those with shorter memories may remember the cargo manifest for Hasenfus’s round trips into Central America.
At the other end of the Iran-contra connection Manzer el-Kassar, one of the biggest arms dealers working with Ollie North, was also running big shipments of heroin back in the other direction, opium out of Afghanistan, converted to heroin in little labs in the Bekaa Valley, and on to a junkie near you.
Hey, the guy who owned Huffman Airlines, where Atta trained in Florida, had a plane seized in Orlando a month earlier with forty pounds of heroin in it. And no one got arrested.
So be disappointed, but don’t be surprised.
I’m dealing with aging parents. Dad had his knee replaced last Monday, and I spent the entire week at their side. Then Mom, who puts anal poeple to shame for low standards, wore her hip out to the point where she couldn’t stand. Of course she did this on high priority items- like ironing dad’s shirts even though he’s not going to leave the house FOR THREE FRIGGING WEEKS!
So now I’m getting a mom who weeps if the bedspread isn’t perfectly aligned on top of the special needs kid (and half time job) I already have. Frankly I’m terrified that as soon as my daughter is at the point where she won’t need me so much (around 5 years) my folks will be to the point where they need me so much that I won’t be able to return to have a career.
Then I will have spent my entire life taking care of other people, and never ever get to have a life of my own.
It’s a low point.
Another worst president ever missive…this time from WaPo
Think Noonan&Co™ are apoplectic now, wait until the investigations start…ITMFA
Those drugs will be flooding western streets in the next year causing a crime wave the likes of which America has never seen. It will give authoritarians the excuse to put the final nails in the coffin of Americas constitutional democracy. Right wing Democratic congressional leaders will be at the forefront of hammering down the lid as they thump their chests in ‘law and order’ machismo in order to pander to their real constituents, the GOP for the 2008 presidential elections.
SEE: USA; a terrorist supporting nation
And: “Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies”
“The international drug control regime, which criminalizes narcotics, does not reduce drug use, but it does produce huge profits for criminals and the armed groups and corrupt officials who protect them. Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies.” New York University Professor Barnett Rubin to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sept. 2006.
Dr. Rubin concluded: “If it were not illegal, it would be worth hardly anything. It’s only its illegality that makes it so valuable.”
And Plan Colombia: Informed Myopia
“Significant and prolonged shortages in South American heroin most likely would not result in an increase in distribution of Mexican heroin in eastern states because Mexico heroin production capacity appears insufficient to meet total U.S. demand and because users of white heroin have strongly resisted using black tar heroin. Instead, shortages in South American heroin availability would most likely result in an increase in Southwest Asian (Afghanistan) heroin distribution in U.S. drug markets; however, such distribution would very likely be controlled by Colombian and Dominican criminal groups who would purchase Southwest Asian heroin from sources in Asia or Europe.” U.S. Justice Department 2006 National Drug Threat Assessment
And: al Qaeda’s success strategy -silent jihad-
“The crop will be opium and the farmer will be Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world. Bin Laden, accused by the United States of bombing two of their embassies in East Africa this summer and a string of other attacks, sees heroin as a powerful new weapon in his war against the West, capable of wreaking social havoc while generating huge profits, according to sources in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan.”
Sen. John Kerry spoke to this issue as the World Trade Center still smoldered in September 2001: “That’s part of their revenge on the world,” Kerry said. “Get as many people drugged out and screwed up as you can.”
The major Democratic leaders in the U.S. senate are all staunch drug warriors who will escalate the drug war rather than end or reform it. Kerry. Clinton. Obama. Biden. And too many more.
IMPORTANT!!!!!
The important thing is that John Conyers of MI will become the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. John Conyers is also on the advisory board of the Drug Policy Alliance which is the leading drug policy reform organization in America.
It is vitally important that drug policy reform advocates and proponents call their members of congress and demand that they support John Conyers. It is also important that all Democrats in congress hear from reformers specifically about this pending disaster.
IF THEY DON’T HEAR IT FROM US THEY WON’T HEAR IT AT ALL!
The drug war is the greatest national security threat that America faces today.
“White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news “disappointing.””
Getting home too late for the last piece of chocolate cake is “disappointing”. Intentionally enforcing a three dozen year Jim Crow civil war policy that is, according to the congressional Research Service is, “creating chaos and instability” is treason.