There were two major and immediate effects of this. The farmers had to plant something else, which made less income, and the monies received by these lucrative refineries dried up. The ISI and Taliban demanded that the world pay them for their efforts. Well, that's like spitting in the wind. The US taxpayer did cough up $11 billion for their efforts, but it seems that the Taliban didn't really get much of this money. It went to our good buddies at the ISI. After all, they had been nurtured by our CIA all these years, so the camaraderie was there. And it's just easier to give to secret, intelligence services than radical, Islamic organizations that take criminals and use Toyota pickups to pull their arms apart on weekends as part of their leisure series of activities. Old habits die hard, I guess.
The study concludes, "If this figure of what the Taliban gets is taken as reasonable, more than US $11 billion per annum from the heroin trade goes to Pakistan, that is, more than Pakistani Rs. 715 billion, as one US dollar equal to 65 Pak rupees. During 2000-01, the Pakistani State had a total revenue of Rs. 570.6 billion, of which Rs. 471.6 billion came from taxes. That is, Pakistan's heroin economy was 30 per cent larger than its legitimate State economy." The Taliban were stuck with a mere $45 million, sorry. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and well, once sol, always sol. Better luck next time on the Ferris Wheel.
According to the October, 2007 abstract by the click here (Editor's note: this link does not work) target=_blank>Strategic Studies Institute, a US Army organization, OPIUM AND AFGHANISTAN: REASSESSING U.S. COUNTERNARCOTICS STRATEGY, "Cultivation and production of opium in Afghanistan have skyrocketed since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 such that Afghanistan now supplies 92 percent of the world's illicit opium. The expanding opium trade is threatening to destabilize the Afghan government and turn the conflict-ridden country back into a safe haven for drug traffickers and terrorists." Hey, don't laugh. They made that report with our tax dollars. I wonder if they actually asked the CIA for the info..... Nah, too easy.
Since the US has returned the Afghan farmer to his rightful cash crop, the world's illegal heroin refineries have been enjoying one great banner year after another. The US government has been bugging President Harmid Karzai for help. President Harmid Karzai says that the US has the troops, they have the guns, and they have the means, so why don't they do it? After all, he's lucky if he can make it to work everyday. His authority makes it as far as the nearest traffic signal, on a good day. So, as the US government and the Afghan government play "Tag," the Afghan farmer gets to make moolah, that's "moolah," not "mullah," hand over fist.
Now the "new" US policy is for the US to go after the refineries and leave the farmer alone. According to click here (Editor's note: this link does not work) Yahoo news, "The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told The Associated Press on Saturday that eradication programs weren't working and were only driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban. "Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.
"The G-8 ministers 'strongly appreciated' the shift, which also includes an increase in annual U.S. funding for agricultural development from a few million dollars to a few hundred million dollars, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the current G-8 president.... Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. The United Nations has estimated the Taliban and other Afghan militants made $50 million to $70 million (off) of last year's opium and heroin trade."
But isn't this just a repeat of their fantastically successful program during 2000 and 2001 when American taxpayer money spent $11 billion to "compensate" the loss in drug revenue? Well, we compensated the ISI loss at least. That's one out of two. C'mon, in global terms, to get it 50% right has got to be one of the top ten successful events of the era. Now we are compensating the farmers with ..... "a few hundred million dollars."
Uh, let me get this right. In 2000 and 2001, the US taxpayer gave the ISI $11 billion to compensate them for their loss in revenue. Now, almost ten years later, it's gone "up" to "a few hundred million dollars"?? Granted, these are more farmer compensation rather than refinery compensation, but if less opium is planted, cultivated and harvested, won't there be less opium to refine? Just a wild guess on my part, but if you have less crop, don't you have less crop to refine? Doesn't that mean that there will be less output from the refineries, ergo a loss in revenues? Damn. I guess they aren't kidding about that contracting economy they keep talking about. Perhaps the refinery issue is for next year.
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66 year old Californian-born and bred male - I've lived in four different countries, USA, Switzerland, Mexico, Venezuela, and currently live in the Dominican Republic - speak three languages fluently, English, French, Spanish - have worked as a (more...)
