[News] Follow the Poppies : Opium, Afghanistan, and U.S. Foreign Policy

[Anti-Imperialist News]

24 May 2010


<http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/follow-poppies-opium-afghanistan-and-us.html>Follow 
the Poppies : Opium, Afghanistan, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Working with the warlords:
Afghanistan and the heroin trade
The U.S. used the international heroin network to serve its 
geopolitical aims in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/follow-poppies-opium-afghanistan-and-us.html

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / May 24, 2010

When George W. Bush and Tony Blair decided to first attack 
Afghanistan, one consideration was bringing enough stability to run a 
pipeline down through the country to Pakistan. One wonders if Blair 
and Bush gave any thought to the heroin trade when they decided to 
attack the Taliban.

Between 1991 and 2003, about 60 tons of heroin from Afghanistan went 
to wholesalers along the Volga and in the Urals Districts of Russia. 
Who knows how much went to the rest of Russia. Northern Afghanistan 
is the bridgehead for moving drugs into Russia. Far more Afghan 
heroin went to Europe, the largest single consumer of heroin.

Drugs and banks

In June, 2003, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan estimated that the 
international drug trade was worth between $500 billion and $1 
trillion a year. The banks that launder this money have a strong 
incentive to see that the drug trade continues. The Independent 
reported on February 28, 2004, that, in cash terms, narcotics ranked 
third in world trade, following oil and arms. Drugs are particularly 
important because they constitute a form of currency vital to the 
underworld, international crime, and intelligence agencies.

Making this point could mislead readers into thinking that a high 
wall separates legitimate and illegitimate transactions. Today, 
business transactions have become so complex that many so-called 
legitimate businesses have found it necessary to deal with 
international criminal organizations and to use their currency of 
choice, drugs. All too often it is very hard to distinguish between 
government intelligence agencies and the criminal elements they must 
cooperate with, and the welfare of some politicians also depends upon 
the free flow of drugs. Heroin constitutes but one part of that trade.

By then between 80 and 90% of the world's heroin was coming from 
Afghanistan. In 2007, the country produced 8,200 tons of opium 
poppies. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 
Taliban earns from $90 to $400 million from drugs. Most experts place 
the figure at $125 billion and add that this includes taxes it 
imposes upon chemicals used to process opium.

The whole country's annual drug take is somewhere between $2.8 and 
$3.4 billion. Much of that money goes to line the pockets of Afghan 
police and officials. A 2008 U.S. Senate report put the value of the 
transnational sales of all Afghan opiates at between $400 and 500 
billion in street value. Some of that found its way to western 
chemical companies via doubtful routes. Of that amount, about $70 
billion is heroin. Up to 10% of the heroin money moves through an 
informal banking system called hawala. The rest is laundered through 
Western banks.

Some financial analysts claim that the hundreds of billions in 
narco-dollars held by huge financial institutions provided the 
liquidity that made it possible to pull the world back from the 
potential wreckage of its financial system.

Antonio Maria Costa of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said, "Drugs 
money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at 
the height of the global crisis." Costa added, "In many instances, 
the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the 
second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem 
and hence liquid capital became an important factor."

Afghanistan's poppies are enormously important in today's world, but 
it is difficult to sort out how drugs have influenced U.S. policy there.

Fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan

In the 1980s, the C.I.A. helped drug lords become mujahidin leaders. 
One was Gulbuddin Hekmatya who dominated the local drug trade and 
became the world's most important heroin trafficker. Of course, these 
leaders were encouraged to finance their insurgency through drug 
sales. With the blessing of the Americans, the drug lords ordered the 
peasants to raise many poppies. The drug barons were also encouraged 
to spread heroin to the Russian forces, and this effort was largely 
successful. Within two years, Afghanistan was the world's main heroin producer.

Drugs moved from the drug lords to Soviet troops with the help of 
reputed Russian crime figures such as Vladimir Filin and Aleksei 
Likhvintsev. They were part of what Russians call "OPS," an organized 
crime society. According to Indian observer Theruvath Raman, the 
C.I.A. controlled this flow.

Since then, massive quantities of heroin have made their way into 
Russia with the help of an international drug network and likely 
successor to the BCCI that includes the Russian mafia and Islamic 
extremists there. Drug addiction there is now as serious as the 
alcohol problem.

While attempting to combat Islamic extremists in the Middle East, the 
U.S. was probably working with elements of the Hizb ut-Tahrir 
al-Islami in Russia. It is a "liberation army" intent upon creating 
an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia. More recently, it appears that 
elements in the Russian government and military are sharing business 
with the narco-barons and bringing some order to the trade by 
squeezing out the ethnic criminal/drug groups.

A worldwide drugs/arms network takes form

The Russian mafia soon became a major player in moving drugs and arms 
throughout the world. Many of the arms came from the arsenals of the 
collapsed Soviet Union that were not located on Russian territory. 
Some of the leaders in this criminal underground were former 
intelligence officers, and some of them are highly educated and even 
respected scholars.

These Russians are the most visible element in a worldwide network 
that seems to control the movement of drugs in most places, other 
than the route from Burma to South China. There is much speculation 
about the extent of U.S. cooperation with this network, and 
especially its Russian members.

In 1994, the U.S. began shipping arms into Angola through Victor Bout 
of the OPS, whom the U.S. later employed in Iraq, and is now seeking 
to arrest. The overthrow of the Ceaucescu regime in Romania and the 
fall of Shevardnadze in Georgia also involved cooperation with the 
network. It is possible that the "tulip revolution" in Kyrgyzstan was 
another joint project. Far West, LLC, an arm of the Russian mob that 
supposedly specializes in intelligence consulting, moved into 
Kyrgyzstan after the fall of Askar Akayev, and heroin traffic through 
that land soon trebled.

Whatever U.S. and Western involvement there was in these nasty 
activities was masked by various cut-outs. As the Wall Street Journal 
reported in respect to Georgia, that was work of "a raft of 
non-government organizations... supported by American and other 
foundations." One of the officers of Far West has said that an 
unnamed American firm had invested in it. Far West has done business 
with Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR Halliburton), and Diligence Iraq 
LLC, a private military firm considered a CIA. spin-off. It is tied 
to Diligence Middle East, which has links to New Bridge Strategies, 
which is linked to Neil Bush.

It is known that representatives of the drug network and people close 
to the CIA met in 1999 under the aegis of Adnan Khashoggi at 
Beaulieu, France. He has been a CIA asset since the 1960s when he was 
passing Lockheed money to Saudi officials. One topic at the meeting 
must have been affairs in the former Yugoslavia, where Kosovo was 
becoming a major drug entrepot.

Without the knowledge of their defense ministry, Russian paratroopers 
on June 11, 1999, seized the Slatina airport, giving Russia a base in 
Kosovo. This was an instance in which the U.S. and the Russian 
narco-barons were not on the same page. Wesley Clark ordered General 
Sir Mike Jackson to oust the Russians, but the Brit declined to 
"start World War Three for him."

The Russians remained there until 2003, when they shifted their main 
platform for the export of drugs to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. 
That port and St. Petersburg are used to export cocaine brought in 
from Columbia.

The U.S. and the Caucuses

The Caspian area in 1999 was estimated to have a reserve of 200 
billion barrels of black gold or oil. Two years later, it appeared 
that the reserve was about one tenth that amount.

In December, 1999, the United States again began to play a major role 
in Turcic, in Central Asia. It sent representatives to a meeting in 
Azerbaijan where arrangements were made to train mujahedeen from the 
Caucases and Central/South Asia and also Arabs to assist Chechen 
rebels. U.S. "private security companies" were used to evade the 
international embargo against helping the Chechen rebels.

The thinking was that higher levels of violence would dissuade 
Western investors from making oil deals with Russia. The U.S. was 
promoting the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline to get oil from the Caspian 
Basin to the Mediterranean. James Baker III, Adnan Khashoggi, and 
Lord Mc Alpine had created a Caucasian Common Market to serve this 
effort. It is administering $3 billion in United States development 
funds for infrastructure projects in the area. The Bush 
administration spent $11 in Georgia to train a pipeline protection battalion.

The US intervenes in Afghanistan

The Taliban took over the Afghan drug trade in 1994, with the CIA's 
consent, and they seized power in 1996. Relations between the Taliban 
and the U.S. soured, and in July, 2000, the Taliban moved to end 
poppy cultivation, calling it un-Islamic. Of course, they were 
probably doing this to put pressure on the West. The long-term 
consequences of this currency contraction could have dealt a serious 
blow to Western financial systems.

Drying up that crop deprived Western banks of billions in new 
deposits. At that time, Afghanistan produced two-thirds of the 
world's heroin, and the absence of new narco-dollars could damage the 
finanCIAl system. Le Monde and the IMF estimated that about $300 
billion in Afghan heroin money had been making its way to Wall 
Street. Narco-dollars provided needed liquidity to the American and 
Western financial markets.

The Taliban decision also hurt the Pakistani intelligence service, 
the ISI. Ironically, the ban also made Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, 
major drug operators, far less valuable to the Pakistani spooks. 
About 60% of Pakistan's GDP also came from drugs, and the Taliban's 
move was a serious blow to its neighbor.

Of course, the Taliban also alienated the Afghan drug lords when they 
dried up 97% of the opium poppy crop. Banning the drug trade 
alienated Afghan drug lords, many of whom were in the Northern 
Alliance. In 2001, the United States began reestablishing close ties 
with Afghan drug lords, perhaps as preparation for making war in that country.

Drug trafficker Ahmad Shah Massoud became very important to American 
planners because his guerrilla attacks on the Taliban were often 
successful. Haji Zaman, "Mr. Ten Percent," another drug lord, was 
another important American ally then. He fled to Dijon, France, when 
the Taliban seized Jalalabad, and the U.S. and British 
representatives persuaded him to return to Afghanistan.

With the help of Afghan and Pakistani drug lords, Hamid Karzai, a 
former Unocal employee, gathered support in Pashtun areas. The U.S. 
seems to have turned a blind eye to the heroin reserves and 
refineries kept maintained by these people.

General Tommy Franks gave drug barons Hazrat Ali and Haji Zaman the 
job of trapping and bringing in Osama bin Laden, who was known to be 
at Tora Bora. They moved very slowly, not attacking until the bombing 
had stopped four days before. There was plenty of time for Osama to 
escape and leave behind a rear guard.

The intelligence chief of Eastern Shura, Pir Baksh Bardiwal, had 
warned that it was a great mistake to use the two drug lords. They 
had no interest in seeing the power of Kabul extend to their 
operations Nangahar Province. U.S. journalist Philip Smucker heard 
that one of Hazrat Ali's low level commanders, Ilyas Khel, provided 
an escort for Bin Laden and showed the Arabs how to escape.

Afghan war lords and poppies

The successful war restored to power brutal war lords whose rule was 
worse than that of the Taliban. The U.S. military presence in 
Afghanistan was sharply diminished, and the Bush administration spent 
very little on nation-building and development. Afghan poppy growing 
mushroomed, and very little was done about it.

There was talk about eradicating the poppy crop, but some in 
Washington said that such a step would destabilize the regime in 
Pakistan. In 2002, a former Indian official offered another reason 
why the Americans could not move against the Afghan poppy crop:
...this marked lack of success in the heroin front is due to the fact 
that the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA) of the USA, which 
encouraged these heroin barons during the Afghan war of the 1980s in 
order to spread heroin-addiction amongst the Soviet troops, is now 
using them in its search for bin Laden and other surviving leaders of 
the Al Qaeda.

The country produces 8,250 metric tons of opium poppies every year, 
and and it is moved by trucks by refineries. If the trucks were 
stopped, the refineries would go out of business. There are reports 
that India supports some refineries which generate money for 
insurgents in Pakistan. The Israelis did the same for insurgents in Iran.

Authorities in neighboring Tajikistan complain that neither the U.S. 
nor NATO is moving against the Afghan drug lords. The Tajikistan Drug 
Control Agency's Avaz Yuldashov noted: "Our intelligence shows there 
are 400 labs making heroin there, and 80 of them are situated along 
our border." He added that drug money from Afghanistan pays for 
international terrorism. In addition there are many labs in Pakistan 
to process Afghan poppies. The drugs are then shipped out of Karachi. 
Most Afghan drugs end up in Turkey, a NATO member, from whence they 
are moved to Europe.

Some drug lords are allied with President Karzai, and his 
half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial 
council, has been accused of being in the drug trade. It is said that 
he ships drugs to Iran. If so, he would have to pay some Taliban 
tolls to keep the product moving.

Those drugs could be used in Iran, but much of that cargo goes to 
Russia via Iran. Much has been written about warlords tied to Wali 
benefiting from a $2.16 billion U.S. contract for trucking services. 
Current and former intelligence officials tell reporters that Wali 
has been on the C.I.A. payroll for eight years.

Has the U.S. been dealing heroin?

It is difficult to establish whether the U.S is benefiting directly 
and financially from the Afghan drug trade. Political scientist 
Vladimir Filin, once head of Far West, told an interviewer that this 
is the case. He noted that, "They control Bagram airfield from where 
the Air Force transport planes fly to a U.S. base in Germany." From 
there, heroin goes to "other U.S. bases and installations in Europe." 
Much is shipped to Kosovo where the Kosovo Albanian mafia move it it 
"back to Germany and other EU countries."

In time, he predicted, U.S. drug centers will be shifted to Pozan, 
Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria because those host countries tolerate 
high levels of corruption. He estimated that America was moving 
between 15 and 20 tons into Europe per year, That is not a huge share 
of the world drug trade. However, other Russian observers place the 
tonnage at a much higher level and offer many more details about how 
the heroin is taken out and where it goes . General Mahmut Gareev, 
who commanded Soviet troops in Afghanistan, 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. Essentially, they are 
not going to interfere and stop the production of drugs.

General Khodaidad, the Afghan counternarcotics minister, also said 
the Americans and British are stockpiling the opium poppies in the 
provinces they control, and he added that NATO forces often tax the 
production. Former F.B.I. translator Sybel Edmonds told Congress that 
some military planes were used to move the heroin, but she was twice 
silenced by the Bush administration through the state secret privilege.

Dennis Dayle, a former DEA. agent said:
In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and 
related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost 
invariably turned out to be working for the C.I.A.

No one wants to believe that our government is deeply involved in the 
narcotics trade. Perhaps none of these sources can be believed. 
However, we do know that the U.S. was selling drugs to its troops in 
Vietnam and moving some drugs out of Southeast Asia then. At the very 
least, it was also protecting Nicaraguan Contras who moved drugs into 
the U.S. to pay for weapons. Maybe there is a pattern here. 
Conversely, there seems to be a long-standing pattern of mainstream 
media not looking into these matters.

Two problems

The U.S. used the international heroin network to serve its 
geopolitical aims in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Peter Dale Scott, 
upon whose solid work this piece is partially based, has suggested 
that the drug/arms network may have grown so powerful that it is no 
longer just a tool to be used by the U.S. government. It may have its 
own agenda and the ability to bend U.S. policy to serve its objectives.

The present situation is very different from the days when the U.S. 
relied on private firms run by retired U.S. officials and politicians 
to carry out illicit weapons transactions or help the Nicaraguan 
Contras move drugs.

A second problem is that American aims in Afghanistan may have 
conflicted with those of the local drug lords. The drug industry 
thrives where state power is weak, where nothing can be done about 
peasants growing poppies, and the state cannot move against 
refineries and stockpiles.

The United States claimed that it wanted to expand state power and to 
bring order and stability to Afghanistan. Order was also needed if 
headway was to be made on the TAPI pipeline that was critical to 
U.S.-owned electrical facilities in India. Possibly, American 
planners thought that these conflicting interests could be 
reconciled. Clearly, the drug barons thought otherwise. At this 
moment, it appears that the TAPI venture could be doomed.

[Sherman DeBrosse is a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. A retired 
history professor, he also blogs at <http://www.blogger.com/>Sherm 
Says and on DailyKos.]




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