NATO troops are dying to aid drug-friendly gov't
by Gaile Noble, Daily News, Dec 29, 2006

I wish our fearless leaders would level with Canadians as to what is happening in Afghanistan and why Canadian troops are dying there.

It's not just the Taliban that the U.S.-led NATO forces have to contend with but the international drug trade that have their own militias that regularly kill NATO troops to keep the drug trade going.

In a sense, the Taliban have gotten a bum rap. They outlawed opium cultivation by 2001. After the overthrow of the Taliban in the fall of 2001 by U.S. forces, the drug lords returned and now Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Like it or not, the officials of the Afghan government under President Karzai are heavily involved in protecting this cultivation that is a $2.6 billion a year industry in Afghanistan.

Needless to say, the poverty-stricken Afghan farmer does not see this wealth but it beats trying to grow anything else and provides them with up to 12 times as much income per acre as conventional farming.

I hate to think that our troops as well as others from NATO are dying to prop up a government that depends on international drug cartels for its existence.

According to a government report, Afghan heroin's share of the market in the USA doubled from 7 percent in 2001 to 14 percent in 2004, the latest year studied. Meanwhile, heroin-related deaths are also on the rise, along with more seizures and more overdoses. The amount of high-quality heroin throughout America is surging because of an increasing supply from Afghanistan -- and with it the fear that record-breaking poppy harvests after the U.S. invasion are fueling more addictions and overdose deaths back home....

"The rise of heroin from Afghanistan is our biggest rising threat in the fight against narcotics," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. "We are seeing more seizures and more overdoses." According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Afghanistan's poppy fields have become the fastest-growing source of heroin in the United States. Its share of the U.S. market doubled from 7 percent in 2001, the year U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban, to 14 percent in 2004, the latest year studied. Another DEA report, released in October, said the 14 percent actually could be significantly higher. Not only is more heroin being produced from Afghan poppies coming into the United States, it is also is the purest in the world, according to the DEA's National Drug Intelligence Center...

This potent heroin, which the DEA says sells for about $90 a gram in southern California, has prompted warnings from some officials who deal with addicts that they reduce the amount of the drug they use. Many addicts seeking the most euphoric high employ a dangerous calculation to gauge how much of the drug they can consume without overdosing. An unexpectedly powerful bundle of heroin, therefore, can be deadly. "I tell people, 'If you're using it, only use half or three-quarters of what you used to,' because of the higher potency," said Orlando Ward, director of public affairs at the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles' Skid Row. Health workers in boutique rehab centers and health clinics for the homeless say increasing numbers of clients are addicted to more powerful heroin. "My patients say it's more available and cheaper," said Michael H. Lowenstein, a doctor at the Waismann Method detoxification center in Beverly Hills. Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime warned world health authorities in October of the increase in Afghan heroin. "This, in turn, is likely to prompt a substantial increase in the number of deaths by overdose, as addicts are not used to injecting doses containing such high concentrations of the drug," he said.

From 1980 through 1985, Afghan heroin dominated the U.S. market, with a 47 percent to 54 percent share, according to the DEA. Afghanistan's share dwindled to 6 percent for much of the 1990s, as competition from Southeast Asia and Colombia grew. Meanwhile, the Taliban was cracking down as it gained territory, virtually eliminating poppy production after taking over the country. Once the fundamentalist Islamic government was overthrown in 2001, Afghans turned again to the poppy trade to survive in one of the poorest countries in the world. A report released Nov. 28 by the World Bank said U.S. and European efforts to end Afghanistan's $2.3 billion opium business were failing.

The production of opium used to produce heroin reached its highest level ever in Afghanistan this year. It accounted for more than one-third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and 90 percent of the world's supply of illicit opium, mainly supplying Asia and Europe, according to the report. The poppy crop now drives the economy in some regions of the embattled nation, helping to fund a Taliban resurgence. In the United States, Afghan and Mexican poppies were the second-largest source of heroin in 2004, according to the DEA's Heroin Signature Program. South America, led by top supplier Colombia, held 69 percent of the market. That figure dropped 19 percentage points from the 2003 level as U.S. and Colombian efforts to eradicate the trade enjoyed success and as Afghanistan's share increased, according to the DEA.

The Department of Homeland Security also has found evidence of increasing Afghan heroin in the United States. The agency reported skyrocketing numbers of seizures of heroin arriving at U.S. airports and seaports from India, not a significant heroin-producing country but a major transshipment point for Afghan drugs. The seizure of heroin packages from India increased from zero in 2003 to 433 in 2005 -- more than 80 percent of total heroin mail seizures that year...

ISAF = International Security Assistance Force
NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization
*OEF = OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM = WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY (22.Doublethink and 12. Ministry of Peace (War)

UN sceptical about smaller bombs (might drop more to compensate). IRIN, Jul 31, 2007
...Currently there are over 33,000 international forces from 37 countries, led by NATO, and over 10,000 extra US troops operating under OEF command in Afghanistan...

NATO mulls smaller Afghan bombs (to drop on civilians while looking for Taliban). BBC, Jul 30, 2007. Go to JFK SAID MILITARY MAD

'Reaper' robot planes to Afghan & Iraq (each with 14 Hellfire bombs). Telegraph, Jul 18, 2007

AFGHAN NARCO-STATE NOW

AFGHANISTAN REMEMBERED and IN AFGHAN FIELDS

DRUG WAR & PEACE and 35.The Brotherhood and 12.Minisry of Peace (War) and 11.Ministry of Plenty (Starvation) and 22.Doublethink and 13.Weapons