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Global Terrorist And Drug Trafficking Cartels

by Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter

Dec 17, 2007 1:00 PM PST

Opium poppy cultivation
in Afghanistan

by JONATHAN MANTHORPE (VANCOUVER SUN)

There is a connection between Middle East terrorists and the drug trade dates back more than two decades, when the United States and pro-Western governments opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. At that time the focus was on training and equipping fierce mujahideen fighters to resist communist occupation forces, but the means to that end were often the same drug money. Today it is the same thing but growing. The drugs raised in Afghanistan finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are sold. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror not only in Afghanistan but around the world. Most of these same terrorist drug organizations that fuel the terror network also help to fund the Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Part of this illicit cash provides operating capital for international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and others.

Afghanistan produces over 80 percent of the world’s opium supply and 90 percent of the opiate products destined for Europe and the USA. Unlike their counterparts in Colombia, the terrorists in Afghanistan enjoy the benefits of a trafficker-driven economy that lacks a national government who has any interest in combating it.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzal recently at a news conference said,  "It destroys our economy, it destroys a good family life in Afghanistan, which is the most important thing to have in any country. And most important of all, drug production and trafficking goes hand in hand with terrorism, the money that's created from drugs feeds terrorism in Afghanistan
and the rest of the world".
  
US Drug Enforcement Administration DEA intelligence confirms the presence of a linkage between Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and international terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Although DEA has no direct evidence to confirm that Bin Laden is involved in the drug trade, the sanctuary in Pakistan enjoyed by Bin Laden is based on the Taliban’s support for the drug trade, which is a primary source of income in Afghanistan. Credible DEA source information indicates ties between the Taliban and the drug trade. The Taliban directly taxes and derives financial benefits from the opium trade. They even provide receipts for their collected drug revenues.

Drug czar John Walters has acknowledged that “the struggle between narco-trafficking has to be linked with the fight against terrorism” because “drug-trafficking groups contribute to the financing of corruption and terrorism.”

Those involved in the drug trade in the Middle East are as serious about their investment as their violent counterparts in countries such as Colombia, Mexico and the Golden Triangle cartels. Attacks on foreign-aid workers in Afghanistan have skyrocketed — from one a month to one every two days — particularly in areas where opium-producing flowers are being harvested. “It’s absolutely true that security is worse in places where people are growing poppies,” said Diane Johnson, the Afghanistan program director for the Mercy Corps, a charity based in Portland, Oregon.

 Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country. DEA has seen no decrease in availability, and no increase in the price of Southwest Asian Heroin in the United States and European consumer countries. This indicates that significant amounts of opiates still remain available and are plentiful in the supply pipeline. According to the United Nations, up to 60% of Afghanistan’s opium crop is stored for future sales.  

And those involved in the drug trade in the Middle East are as serious about their investment as their violent counterparts in countries such as Colombia and Brazil. Attacks on foreign-aid workers in Afghanistan have skyrocketed — from one a month to one every two days — particularly in areas where opium-producing flowers are being harvested. “It’s absolutely true that security is worse in places where people are growing poppies,” said Diane Johnson, the Afghanistan program director for the Mercy Corps, a charity based in Portland, Oregon.

“The revenue from the poppy trade in Afghanistan is more than all the humanitarian aid combined,” said Paul Barker, Afghanistan director of CARE. He’s right, of course; poppy cultivation in that country earned $1.2 billion in 2002, compared with $500 million in foreign aid, providing an incredible incentive to those who profited from poppy growing to adopt an “any means necessary” approach to protecting their largest cash cow.

Rep. Ed Royce, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee, said an Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) document highlights how vulnerable the nation is when fighting the war on terrorism.

“I’ll be asking the terrorism subcommittee to hold a hearing on the DEA report’s disturbing findings,” said Mr. Royce of California. “A flood of name changes from Arabic to Hispanic and the reported linking of drug cartels on the Texas border with Middle East terrorism needs to be thoroughly investigated.“

DEA says they will continue to aggressively identify and build cases against drug trafficking organizations contributing to global terrorism. They intend to limit the ability of drug traffickers to use their destructive goods as a commodity to fund malicious assaults on humanity and the rule of law.

According to the DEA their mission is to target the powerful international drug trafficking organizations that operate around the world, supplying drugs to American communities, employing thousands of individuals to transport and distribute drugs. Some of these groups have never hesitated to use violence and terror to advance their interests, all to the detriment of law-abiding citizens. We see in these groups today a merger of international organized crime, drugs, and terror. While DEA does not specifically target terrorists, per se, we can and will target and track down drug traffickers involved in terrorist acts, wherever in the world we can find them.

DEA’s interest in terrorism and insurgencies is based on three considerations: National Security, Force Protection, and Foreign Intelligence.

The Columbian and Mexican drug cartels now believed to be working with international terrorist is the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States.

These new combined international drug trafficking organizations are complex organizations with highly defined command-and-control structures that produce, transport, and/or distribute large quantities of Afghanistan illicit drugs.

The Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO’s) are perfect for the terrorist because they are active in every region of the country and dominate the illicit drug trade in every area in both Mexico and the United States. Because of this new alliance Mexican DTOs are expanding their operations dramatically in order to gain a larger share of the drug market. Colombian DTOs are dominant cocaine and heroin traffickers, particularly in the Northeast; however, they are increasingly relinquishing control to Mexican DTOs in order to shield themselves from law enforcement detection. The Mexican DTOs are already major transporters and distributors of cocaine and South American heroin into the U.S. They also distribute cocaine and other drugs to numerous other DTOs and criminal groups that are also active in the United States the world’s largest users of cocaine and heroin.

Other reasons the terrorist have chosen the Mexican DTOs is they control the transportation and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in every area of the western hemisphere, exerting unrivaled control over transportation and wholesale distribution of cocaine, Mexican heroin, Mexican marijuana, and ice methamphetamine. Their established overland transportation routes and entrenched distribution networks enable them to supply primary and secondary drug markets throughout these regions. Mexican DTOs are further expanding their influence throughout the world.

Other organizations pandering to the global terrorist drug traffickers is Asian DTOs and criminal groups based in Canada have emerged as significant producers, transporters, and distributors of high-potency marijuana and MDMA to drug markets throughout the United States. Others are Colombian, Dominican, Cuban, and Jamaican DTOs serve as major transporters and distributors of illicit drugs in the United States. Still others getting involved are Criminal groups operating in the United States and they are numerous and range from small to moderately sized, loosely knit groups that distribute one or more drugs at the midlevel and retail level.

The drug distribution is even evolving Gangs in America and they in turn sale to the street dealers. The street dealers than get the products to the smaller dealers to distribute to our neighbors. All of this creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. And that is exactly what the terrorist want.

The U.S. indicates an increase in worldwide demand for heroin, and the resulting profitability of poppy growing in the regions of the world where terrorist organizations most flourish. U.S. and other forces have been in Afghanistan for several years — despite having ousted the ruling Taliban government, which support al-Qaeda terrorists. Fighting an ongoing guerrilla war against supporters of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in hopes of creating a stable government in Kabul and the country in general is proving to be slim.

The illegal drug market is one of the most profitable in the world. It is extremely difficult to know the global value of the drug trade since it is a business that is illegal, underground, and hard to trace. The United Nations Drug Control Program estimates that it is worth $400 billion per year, equivalent to 8% of world trade. In the United States, alone, the drug trade is worth upwards of $100 billion per year. It is now close to 20 years since the U.S. government has been fighting the “War On Drugs,” but despite the billions of dollars spent, an enormous amount of drugs continues to flow into the country. And now even more coming in from Afghanistan.

However, with poppy sales on the rise in Afghanistan local warlords whose allegiance rests comfortably with anti-U.S. factions and those whose loyalty is up for sale can be counted on to continue cultivating this highly coveted crop to raise money for local armies fighting to expel American and allied troops from Afghanistan.

More heroin production will mean that more drugs will be sold on American streets by the kinds of characters who would do business with terrorists. Street crime and corruption will certainly be a booming industry in the next few years. On the foreign-policy front, rising demand for illegal drugs from the United States and other countries means more money for terrorists to finance violent operations against coalition soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It means unfortunately more body bags coming home from the frontlines.

Opium 
 
 "There are no quick fixes to the poppy problem in Afghanistan, I would say aerial eradication is wrong, it will drive farmers, the vast majority of whom are very poor and trying to feed their families into the hands of the Taliban and that would be a big mistake” 
http://voanews.com/english/2008-01-31-voa27.cfm 
Matt Walden, Oxfam director in open letter to Gordon Brown(31.01.08) 
 
 REPORT 
 
 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EDIS-7BJPVD?OpenDocument 
Afghanistan: Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production 
05.02.08. Summary, Relief Web. Source: United Kingdom Department for International Development; The World Bank Group (DFID) 
 
  
 
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/unodc-anticipates-another-large-opium-crop-in-afghanistan-in-2008.html 
UNODC anticipates another large opium crop in Afghanistan in 2008 
February 2008, Unodoc.  
 
 The 2008 edition of the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, US. Dept. of State, 
http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/ 
Vol I: Drug and Chemical Control 
 
http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol2/ 
Vol II: Money Laundering and Financial Crimes 
 
  
ARTICLES 
 
 http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11956573 
Record amount of illegal drugs seized in Tajikistan 
31.01.08. interfax.ru. Tajikistan remains one of the main transit routes for Afghan opium intended for Russia and Western European countries. According to the United Nations, 19% of Afghan opium is shipped via Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but the bulk of the drugs is shipped via Iran and Pakistan. 
 
 http://www.journeyman.tv/?lid=57849 
Afghanistan's Opium Trail 
01.02.08. journeyman.Over 90% of the world’s opium now comes from Afghanistan. In this shocking new film, we ride the drugs caravan, from cultivation, to process, to market. On route, we lift the curtain on the hidden world of the drug barons; learn how to process heroin in the crudest of laboratories and encounter deadly gunfights on the Iranian border... 
 
 http://thepost.com.pk/OpinionNews.aspx?dtlid=142322&catid=11 
Waltzing on US tunes 
*02.02.08. Farhat Akram, thepost.com.pk. Since the commencement of the war on terror, the people of Afghanistan have seldom experienced the transience of emancipation as a result of the sole super power and “security” provider and its allies. Afghanistan has become a classical example of unfulfilled promises. … He [Karzai] is forgetting that after the passing of seven years of the war on terrorism in his country, the global human development index (HDI), ranks Afghanistan at 174th position out of 178 countries while the Human Poverty Index Index describes the country as “one of the worst in the world.” … In 2007, Afghanistan cultivated 193,000 hectares of opium poppies, an increase of 17 percent over the last year. The amount of Afghan land used for opium is now larger than the corresponding total for coca cultivation in Latin America (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined). Favourable weather conditions produced opium yields (42.5 kg per hectare) higher than last year (37.0 kg/ha). As a result, in 2007 Afghanistan produced an extraordinary 8,200 tons of opium (34 percent more than in 2006), becoming practically the exclusive supplier of the world’s deadliest drug (93 percent of the global opiates market). 
 
 http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOh63wu14n9mDKK01WcRlx4Cty_g 
More action needed on Afghan opium: UN representative 
04.02.08. AFP. Afghanistan has done little to stop the corruption propping up its drugs trade and its war-shattered institutions are too weak to handle the problem, the UN representative on drugs here said. … Traffickers provide weapons, funding and personnel to anti-government rebels, while corrupt officials offer protection of drug trade routes, poppy fields and people, it said. … Afghanistan's opium, increasingly turned into heroin inside the country, feeds drugs users in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East [and the 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium 
USA] 
 
 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iuLFzYTAQ7Uz9pHaeZxtHSWlTaSgD8UK11900 
World Bank Urges Counter-Opium Measures 
05.02.08. AP. The world needs to invest more than $2 billion in irrigation, roads and other rural development to wean Afghanistan off booming opium cultivation, a development bank report said Tuesday. … Needed steps include boosting community-based development projects, expanding irrigation, increasing use of livestock, and helping rural businesses and entrepreneurs thrive, it said. The proposals include investments of $1.2 billion to expand the land under irrigation, $550 million to boost rural enterprise development, and $400 million for rural road planning, construction and maintenance. 
 
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7227639.stm 
Report urges Afghan farmer boost 
05.02.08. D. Loyn, BBC. A new report on Afghanistan's drugs trade urges more investment to provide alternative livelihoods for farmers. 
 
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2253074,00.html 
Opium economy will take 20 years and £1bn to remove 
06.02.08. Patrick Wintour, Guardian. Europe and other major heroin markets should brace themselves for health consequences of harvest, warns UN. … Compiled by the Department of International Development and the World Bank, the analysis suggests at least an extra £1bn needs to be invested in irrigation, roads, alternative crops and rural development to attract farmers away from the lucrative and growing opium industry. 
 
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a3.v3j8mKd2A&refer=europe 
Taliban to Raise $100 Million From Afghan Opium Crop 
06.02.08. Ed Johnson, Bloomberg. Afghanistan provides more than 90 percent of the world's supply of opium, the raw ingredient for heroin. 
 
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2253074,00.html 
Opium economy will take 20 years and £1bn to remove 
06.02.08. P. Wintour, Guardian. Analysis of report compiled by the Department of International Development and the World Bank. 
 
 http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/477384.html 
UN: Afghan rebels growing more opium 
06.02.08. AP, kansascity.com 
 
 http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2008/02/us-militarism-drug-trade-afghan-dossier.html 
U.S. Militarism & the Drug Trade: the Afghan Dossier 
06.02.08. antifascist-calling.blogspot [later also at global research]. Essay on two reports and 06.02 Guardian article {see above].  
 
  
 
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/s2157724.htm 
AFGHANISTAN: Booming heroin crop finding its way to Australian streets 
08.02.08. radioaustralia. … Afghan opium production is booming. It now accounts for 90 per cent of the world's supply. 
 
 http://www.island.lk/2008/02/08/features1.html 
The development weapon poised for wielding in Afghanistan 
[no date].. The island.lk. programmes to defuse "terror" in our part of the world could be fundamentally deficient if this task is narrowly conceived by governments as consisting of only armed action to crush and eliminate terror outfits. There is much more than meets the eye here. Poverty, hunger and deprivation drive people to arms and bring them under the sway of divisive ideologies. Programmes to eliminate economic inequity and all other forms inequality could go a considerable distance in ending violent dissension in Third World polities. 
 
 http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2008-02-08-voa8.cfm 
Afghanistan Drug Trafficking 
Editorial, VOA. [no date; also includes 1 download, Drug taking in Afghanistan; and one ‘listen to.’  
 
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqa6vFmxjNSY&refer=us 
Afghan Opium Fields Show Failure of U.S. Economic-Aid Efforts 
11.02.08. Bloomberg. For two years, Yosuf and Abdul Mir pleaded with U.S. officials for a $1.5 million grant for their project, arguing that it meshes perfectly with a billion-dollar-a-year American opium-eradication program. Then, last year, they were turned down. 
 
The Agency for International Development's refusal reflects a broader American policy breakdown in Afghanistan, according to critics: Even as the U.S. and NATO win tactical military battles against the Taliban, they may be losing the war through an inability to create the economic and political environment needed to defeat the insurgents. 
 
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=awwO1DS9jniA&refer=uk 
U.K. Soldiers Seize Ton of Opium, Heroin Haul in Afghanistan 
12.02.08. Bloomberg. British and Afghan troops seized a ton of opium and 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of heroin powder as part of an effort to cut off funding for Taliban insurgents. The bust, made north of the town of Sagin in the southern Helmand province, came after soldiers fought with a ``large number'' of insurgents, who tried to protect the drug lab with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said today in an e-mailed statement. 
 
 http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSWBT00841220080220 
Afghan farmers earn about $1 bln from opium- IMF 
20.02.08. Reuters. It [the International Monetary Fund] said opium production in Afghanistan had spiraled to 8,200 tonnes in 2007, significantly higher than the 185 tonnes in 2001, as the security situation has worsened in the country, making it the world's largest opium producer. [<em>what profit did governments make from the opium trade</em>?] 
 
 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080221_the_poppy_problem/ 
The Poppy Problem 
21.02.08. M. Cocco, Truthdig. With Pakistan undergoing an uncertain political transition, Afghanistan next door provides an opportunity to make quicker and potentially more dramatic progress against what has been an unrelenting slide into violence, insecurity and corruption. The United States and its allies must rethink their failing effort to stanch the trade in illegal poppies, the Afghan bumper crop that finances the resurgent Taliban and terrorist groups in the region. It will not come easily because the Bush administration is convinced the current strategy of eradicating crops—plowing them under before a harvest and trying to convince farmers to grow legitimate products—is working. But there is limited evidence of that. 
 
  
RELEVANT 
 
 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020208Y.shtml 
US Herbicides Exact High Toll on Indigenous Populations 
02.02.07. Thomas D. Williams, truth out. Despite years of ongoing, critical public health controversies in Colombia and Ecuador over the US-assisted aerial herbicide spraying of coca and poppy crops while trying to reduce illegal cocaine and heroin production, US State Department officials are pursuing that very same spraying strategy today. In fact, a couple of months ago, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's administration temporarily cast aside the latest of several State Department exhortations to begin massive herbal spraying operations on poppy crops producing heroin there. … In the meantime, untold thousands of Colombians and Ecuadorians have become sick from the blended chemical spray. Studies have shown the environmental dangers of inhalation and skin and eye saturation of the floating mist. And critically valuable maize, yucca and plantains have been destroyed in large swaths of the fertile country. 
 
  
 
BOX 
 
 http://www.wanttoknow.info/emailmedia 
DRUGS &amp  MEDIA CENSORSHIP 
 
The excerpts below are from 
 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591022304/ref=ord_cart_shr/104-0531273-9795%20%20914?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance 
 
 Into the Buzzsaw 
by Kristina Borjesson, who gives the accounts of 20 award-winning journalists who were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major news stories. 
 
http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/ 
Michael Levine: The expert witness 
 
 The Chang Mai "factory" that the CIA prevented me from destroying was the source of massive amounts of heroin being smuggled into the US in the bodies and body bags of GIs killed in Vietnam. Case after case was killed by CIA and State Department intervention and there wasn't a thing we could do about it….In 1980, CIA-recruited mercenaries and drug traffickers unseated Bolivia's democratically elected president. Immediately after the coup, cocaine production increased massively. Bolivia [became] the source of virtually 100% of the cocaine entering the US. This was the beginning of the crack "plague."…The CIA along with State and Justice Departments had to protect their drug-dealing assets by destroying a DEA investigation. How do I know? I was the inside source….I sat down at my desk in the American embassy and wrote evidence of my charges. I addressed it to Newsweek. Three weeks later DEA's internal security [called] to notify me that I was under investigation….The highlight of the 60 Minutess piece is when the administrator of the DEA, Federal Judge Robert Bonner, tells Mike Wallace, "There is no other way to put it, Mike, [what the CIA did] is drug smuggling. It's illegal." 
 
 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888363932/qid=1100697120/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-0531273-9795914 
Gary Webb: Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion 
 In 1996, I wrote a series of stories that began this way: For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America….The story was developing a momentum all of its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the major media. Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA's activities. Instead, my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable [Mercury News editor] Ceppos wrote, that the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the series "could not find a single significant factual error." A few months later, the Mercury News [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away from the story, publishing a long column by Ceppos apologizing for "shortcomings." The New York Times hailed Ceppos for "setting a brave new standard," and splashed his apology on their front page, the first time the series had ever been 
 
 mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News not long after that….Do we have a free press today? Sure. It's free to report all the sex scandals, all the stock market news, [and] every new health fad that comes down the pike. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff—such stories are not even open (fl?)oor discussion. 
 
 http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/52158 
Global Terrorist And Drug Trafficking Cartels 
13.02.08. M. Webster, American chronicle. There is a connection between Middle East terrorists and the drug trade dates back more than two decades, when the United States and pro-Western governments opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. At that time the focus was on training and equipping fierce mujahideen fighters to resist communist occupation forces, but the means to that end were often the same drug money. Today it is the same thing but growing. The drugs raised in Afghanistan finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are sold. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror not only in Afghanistan but around the world. 
 
 http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/opium-strategy-useless-fitzgibbon-tells-us/2008/02/19/1203190823802.html 
Opium strategy useless, Fitzgibbon tells US 
20.02.08. smh.com.au.The blunt advice was revealed as the Federal Government announced it would rejig its troop commitment to Afghanistan, sending a 70-member military training team into the troubled province of Oruzgan while winding back its reconstruction team. … The surge in opium cultivation from a base of almost zero before the US-led invasion in 2001 has vexed military commanders, political leaders and civilian planners. Although it is clear that opium production is financing the insurgency, it is also the only livelihood for tens of thousands of impoverished farmers and their families. 
 
 http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=1129 
Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan 
19.02.08. israelnews.com. [The report] also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army. … The report then featured an extract from a BBC news website story saying that the British army loses a whole battalion of troops a year because ofhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7142413.stm 
 
drug abuse 
 
 http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2372833 
RUSSIA, AFGHANISTAN AND THE DRUG TRADE 
26.02.08. J. Daly, Jamestown.org. Alarmed by the rise of opium cultivation in Afghanistan, Russia’s Federal Drug Enforcement Service has opened a permanent office in Kabul, Afghanistan. 
 
 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/29/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Helmand-Governor.php 
Governor of volatile Afghan province removed from post 
29.02.08. AP / IHT.The governor of volatile Helmand province was removed from his post Friday after a year of record opium production and insurgency-related violence in the province. Asadullah Wafa, who was appointed in December 2006 amid hope that he would be able to stabilize the province, said President Hamid Karzai issued a decree Friday releasing him from the Helmand post. His removal leaves the country's key area in the battle against insurgents and narcotics without direct government representation, and comes after a series of confrontations between Wafa and British officials in the province over counterinsurgency strategy and the crackdown on drug production. 
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080301/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanpolitics 
Afghanistan parliament approves new drugs minister 
(01.03.08) 
 
 http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=332618 
Afghanistan supplies over ninety percent of opium 
02.03.08. feeds.big news networks. According to the US State Department, Afghanistan is responsible for the supply of ninety three percent of opium to world markets. 
 
Start Box 
 
http://www.borderfirereport.net/investigative-reports/global-terrorist-and-drug-trafficking-cartels.html 
Global Terrorist And Drug Trafficking Cartels 
 
01.03.08. Michael Webster. The drugs raised in Afghanistan finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are sold. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror not only in Afghanistan but around the world. Most of these same terrorist drug organizations that fuel the terror network also help to fund the Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Part of this illicit cash provides operating capital for international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and others. .. Unlike their counterparts in Colombia, the terrorists in Afghanistan enjoy the benefits of a trafficker-driven economy that lacks a national government who has any interest in combating it. … Those involved in the drug trade in the Middle East are as serious about their investment as their violent counterparts in countries such as Colombia, Mexico and the Golden Triangle cartels. [<em>what about US interests in drug trade? What organisations in US are “pandering” to global terrorist drug traffickers?”</em> The illegal drug market is one of the most profitable in the world. [so it stands to reason that where there is profit, there the US will be?] 
 
  
<em><b> So I wrote to Mr Webster and expressed my feelings. He replied </em> </b>: 
 
 <em>I agree with you. I suspect and have all along that the reasons the war on drugs have totally failed is because people in high places are involved. I think the CIA, Contra, high level officials in America and around the world many benefit. How ever to prove it or to be able to have enough reliable sources is difficult at best. I direct you to 
http://www.lagunajournal.com 
http://www.lagunajournal.com 
where you can read more of my writings on the subject.</em>

Sources:

Diane Johnson, the Afghanistan program director for the Mercy Corps, a charity based in Portland, Oregon.

United Nations

U.S. Combat Troops

Afghanistan local warlords

Freedom Daily

DEA

Drug czar John Walters

Paul Barker, Afghanistan director of CARE