Obama's program of war

last SG · 2009-02-02T19:11:54+00:00

. They reduced it to zero. Now, under the US occupation, Afghanistan again supplies the world with 90% of its heroin. Something smells fishy here.Sure close...

freedomclub SG

In Pakistan, Mr. Arlacchi said, the government, working with the United Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programs over the last two decades. ''Production is down to almost zero in the last few years,'' he said.

of all the references you actually pick Pakistan.......u make me laugh....these were the output before Soviet Invasion.........For years Tribes along Pakistan benefited from brokerage of drug trades. these are their source of income.

Foreign Area Studies
The American University
Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins
Research completed
January 1986

All sorts of Western consumer goods were illegally brought into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and they kept the bazaars of Kabul well supplied. The most important item smuggled out of Afghanistan into Pakistan was opium. The importance of the Afghan opium crop increased in the 1970s. Before the war the Afghan opium was thought to have been grown in half the country's provinces, and with prices ranging up to US$1 00 per kilogram, it paid far better than any other cash crop. Production before the outbreak of the war was estimated at about 250 tons annually. Most opium cultivation was in the Pushtun areas of eastern Afghanistan, in Badakhshan, Nangarhar, and Paktia provinces. Every spring, poppy fields bloomed in profusion throughout the region, destined for markets in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Drug trafficking was thought to be worth between US$20 and US$100 million annually before the war. The other important items smuggled into Pakistan were lapis lazuli and lumber. Livestock was sold at a much higher price in Iran than in Afghanistan, and animals, therefore, constituted a major item smuggled into Iran, as was opium.

Heroin from Afghanistan provided the Taliban with $8 billion dollars in 1999, according to

Rachel Ehrenfeld, in her book, Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.

She writes, “The Taliban government, together with al-Qaeda, had taxed the poppy growers and

producers of opium base and heroin while al-Qaeda provided the growers with protection from

warlords and other bandits who would otherwise have stolen their crop.”

You Got Con......by Mohammed Omar......500 metric tons stashed in the caves......

In fact, according to Ehrenfeld, the Taliban and al-Qaeda stashed 500 metric tons of

heroin in caves in the Afghan mountains. During 2000, although poppy cultivation had been

banned, there was only a ten percent decrease in opium production

You're refuting the article I posted, which was written in 2001 with evidence from 1986 and 2000?

Are you saying that the UN is lying about the Taliban curtailing opium production? The truth is that Afghanistan fell from the world's top opium producer after the Taliban took power, but when the US invaded, opium production recovered to supply 90% of world supply.

"Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,600 metric tons in 1999^[9], which was the height of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. According to a Swiss security publication, 'SicherheitsForum' (April 2006, pp:56-57), this resulted in supply exceeding demand and a drop in the high-street price of heroin and morphine in the West, endangering the profitability of European drug smugglers. It has been said that European Smugglers demanded a reduction in supply to counter lower prices. ^[10]

Afghanistan briefly witnessed one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns when Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar declared that growing poppies is un-Islamic. Some historians say the Taliban allege cynically cut production to increase the values of their own stockpiles, although never verified, the effect in the fields was dramatic: a year's crop was almost entirely wiped out and production was down to zero.^[11]

As a result of this July 2001 ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.^[12]

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan#Rise_of_the_Taliban_.281994-2001.29

googoomuck SG

If US tries to seize control of Central Asia because of oil, Russia would have intervened.

Russian influence has never left Central Asia. Russia has no interest in Afghanistan as long as the conflict don't spill into the region bordering the nations under its influence.

Putin must be very pleased that Russia need not have to neutralize the Taliban-Al-Queda menace since the US is doing the job. He can then focus on the tensions in Chechnya.

freedomclub SG

If US tries to seize control of Central Asia because of oil, Russia would have intervened.

Russian influence has never left Central Asia. Russia has no interest in Afghanistan as long as the conflict don't spill into the region bordering the nations under its influence.

Putin must be very pleased that Russia need not have to neutralize the Taliban-Al-Queda menace since the US is doing the job. He can then focus on the tensions in Chechnya.

Thats why there's a replay of the 19th Century Great Game on-going between the US and Russia right now. You think the MSM is going to fill the masses in?

Russia stops US on road to Afghanistan- http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KA27Df01.html

Atobe SG

"Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The Bush administration began its bombing strikes on the hapless, poverty-stricken country October 7, and ground attacks by US Special Forces began October 19.

It is not an accident that these revelations have appeared overseas, rather than in the US. The ruling classes in these countries have their own economic and political interests to look after, which do not coincide, and in some cases directly clash, with the drive by the American ruling elite to seize control of oil-rich territory in Central Asia.

Which insider account are you alluding to ?

How reliable is the insider account and where is their sources of information, when you claim - (further paragraphs down) - that even the Bush Administration is not aware of the going on within the Government ?

It will not be surprising if some smaller retaliatory attacks were already instituted for the brazen attacks that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had made against US and the World Communities since 1993 - as listed in my last reply on Page 2 of this thread.

Should we be surprised at your deliberate distortion of events ?

The pundits for the American television networks and major daily newspapers celebrate the rapid military defeat of the Taliban regime as an unexpected stroke of good fortune. They distract public attention from the conclusion that any serious observer would be compelled to draw from the events of the past two weeks: that the speedy victory of the US-backed forces reveals careful planning and preparation by the American military, which must have begun well before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

...

This is only one of countless lies emanating from the Pentagon and White House about the war against Afghanistan. The truth is that the US intervention was planned in detail and carefully prepared long before the terrorist attacks provided the pretext for setting it in motion. If history had skipped over September 11, and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.

The truth is that the US had been planning to attack Al-Qaeda's training centers inside Afghanistan as they have been attacking US installations across the globe since 1993, and had even attempted to bomb the World Trade Center as early as in 1993.

Yes, if the World Trade Center was not completely destroyed on that fateful day marked forever as 9/11 - the USA would have gone into attack mode if Al-Qaeda continue to hit with impunity at US facilities anywhere and everywhere on this globe.

How many lives have already been lost - both US and other nationalities - in the various attacks that I have listed in my previous reply on Page 2 of this thread ?

Do you think that the USA should sit idly by and absorb more of Al-Qaeda's attacks without planning any kind response ?

“Mr. Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

“He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

“Mr. Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”

Four days later, on September 22, the Guardian newspaper confirmed this account. The warnings to Afghanistan came out of a four-day meeting of senior US, Russian, Iranian and Pakistani officials at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July, the third in a series of back-channel conferences dubbed “brainstorming on Afghanistan.”

Do you know that Uzbekistan has 90 percent of its population being Muslims ?

Do you seriously believe that the political leadership will be in any position to have US forces on Uzbek soil without good reasons such as that provided by Al-Qaeda's actions of impunity at hitting US Military and Civilian targets ?

If any attack plans were to be made prior to 9/11 against the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, it would have been the on-going planning to respond to Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Military and Civilian targets around the globe.

Al-Qaeda's actions on 9/11 simply provided the urgent impetus to deal more seriously with Osama and his Al-Qaeda, which resulted in more re-evaluation made, detailed studies to determine the best strategy plans and methods to be employed.

The final analysis resulted in less than 300 plus Special Forces personnel entering Afghanistan to work closely with the various Nationalist Forces fighting the Talibans.

Further light on secret contacts between the Bush administration and the Taliban regime is shed by a book released November 15 in France, entitled Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth, written by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard is a former French secret service agent, author of a previous report on bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, and former director of strategy for the French corporation Vivendi, while Dasquie is an investigative journalist.

The two French authors write that the Bush administration was willing to accept the Taliban regime, despite the charges of sponsoring terrorism, if it cooperated with plans for the development of the oil resources of Central Asia.

Until August, they claim, the US government saw the Taliban “as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.” It was only when the Taliban refused to accept US conditions that “this rationale of energy security changed into a military one.”

By way of corroboration, one should note the curious fact that neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban regime. Such a designation would have made it impossible for an American oil or construction company to sign a deal with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.

Talks between the Bush administration and the Taliban began in February 2001, shortly after Bush’s inauguration. A Taliban emissary arrived in Washington in March with presents for the new chief executive, including an expensive Afghan carpet. But the talks themselves were less than cordial. Brisard said, “At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”

Should it be any surprise that neither the Bush nor Clinton administration placed the Talibans nor Osama bin Laden as a political entity that promoted terrorism before the 9/11 incident ?

If at all, the previous US Administration during Ronald Reagan's days had embraced and supported the Talebans and Osama bin Laden in the joint battle against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan.

From Reagan to Bush Jr - (it was one term for Bush Sr, and two terms for Clinton) - which amounted to a 12 year interlude that changed US support for Talebans against Soviet Occupation, to one of military threats to dismantle the Talebans and Al-Qaeda ?

Can you even hope to be in any independent position to think for yourself the reasons for this sea-change in US policies ?

By the standards displayed up until this page, it seems that you will prefer to use the information from the blogs posted by supporters of radical Islam.

This account of the preparations for war against Afghanistan brings us to September 11 itself. The terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon was an important link in the chain of causality that produced the US attack on Afghanistan. The US government had planned the war well in advance, but the shock of September 11 made it politically feasible, by stupefying public opinion at home and giving Washington essential leverage on reluctant allies abroad.

The earlier plans to attack Afghanistan before 9/11 was due to the attacks made with such impunity by Al-Qaeda since the first car bombing attack inside the WTC in 1993, and the various Al-Qaeda's attacks at US Civilian and Military facilities and properties around the globe.

The shock of September 11, 2001 simply made a counter attack more than necessary, it was a clarion call to action for all the dastardly unprovoked attacks that culminate the ten years of consistent and persistent attacks at US interests across the globe.

Was public opinions stupefied by George Bush Jr public relation machinery, or was the brazen attack at the WTC on 9 /11 simply too stupefying that it even elicited condemnation from staunchly Islamic Governments that had previously refused to associate themselves closely to the USA ?

Malaysia and Indonesia condemned it; and so did Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Morroco, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan - and with the majority of Muslim reactions immediately after 9/11 destruction of WTC being respectfully subdued and went unreported by the main mass media.

It is so easy to distort events and opinions after a lapse of 8 years since 9/11, and new opinions can be reconstructed from the faded events that began since 1993.

What is your agenda in this effort to propagate these new opinions perpetuated by unknown persons ?

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, there were press reports—again, largely overseas—that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about large-scale terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked airplanes. It is quite possible that a decision was made at the highest levels of the American state to allow such an attack to proceed, perhaps without imagining the actual scale of the damage, in order to provide the necessary spark for war in Afghanistan.

This is not to say that the American government deliberately planned every detail of the terrorist attacks or anticipated that nearly 5,000 people would be killed. But the least likely explanation of September 11 is the official one: that dozens of Islamic fundamentalists, many with known ties to Osama bin Laden, were able to carry out a wide-ranging conspiracy on three continents, targeting the most prominent symbols of American power, without any US intelligence agency having the slightest idea of what they were doing."

- US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11

US Congressional Committee that was formed by prominent Congressmen from both political parties were tasked to investigate all angles and all levels of the different roles of government agencies that led to this sordid event.

The investigation had shown the lapses in the various intelligence agencies that had fought turf wars before and continued the relentless fight up to the date of the investigation. The various agencies had jealously guarded information that remained within their own domain and refused to share it beyond the perimeters of their building.

The US Congressional Committee had even discovered that within the FBI alone, field operatives' reports of suspicious activities was left unattended by their superiors at FBI HQ, with some of these reports being dismissed.

Conspiracy theories abound and if you can accept such conspiracy theories to be true, I wonder why no one give any credibility to the conspiracy theories of the monies that was supposed to have been lent to Indonesia when the late Indonesian President Suharto had faced a financial melt-down in 1997 and sought Singapore's help ?

In a tightly controlled environment such as Singapore, where information is kept in SECRET into perpetuity, such conspiracies will never see the light of day.

Can the same be said of events in the USA - when Government archives are open to the public when it reaches the statutory period of 30 years ?

Can conspiracy theories survive with information that is readily available ?

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Jeb Bush (George Bush Jr's younger brother) barely retained his Governor's seat, while Donald Rumsfeld was forced out of office, Paul Wolfowitz had to climb down from his Defense position and could not even hold on to his chair at the World Bank, Lewis Libby was prosecuted for lying to the Grand Jury, leaving Dick Cheney and George Bush to hold on to the torn pages of the supposed "Pax Americana" - if such a book can even be dreamed up by the brains of these two cowboys with blood flow constricted by tight boots that were undersized for their feet.

So much for the "Pax Americana" speculation.

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).

This is not the first time that the CIA had made poor choices, and this is not a hallmark that is the preserve ground of the CIA, as the reputation of other National Spy Agencies have suffered as much in the hands of 'double-agents'.

The Russian Spy ring that infiltrated the upper crust of Cambridge University providing leadership talents and materials to the UK Government had remained undetected for decades, and had its origins during the early days of Stalin's reign - and was exposed in the late 1960s, after a period of over forty years.

Even to this day, there remain a Russian mole deep within the UK Intelligence Service that is thought to have existed and remain unknown; and time will simply see the mole being retired and perhaps any successor will be more easily detected.

Is this anything new in the World of Spy vs Spy ?

The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).

In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).

Was there any denial on the part of the US Government that the new arrangements with the Central Asian Governments that splintered from the old Soviet Russian Bloc had opened new partnership opportunities to face new political challenges in the 21st Century ?

The war to capture Osama bin Laden and destroy Al-Qaeda had unexpectedly open new doors to new partnership, to face the potential threats from a rising China that is confident with her new found economic strengths, and to face the threats of a belligerent Iran.

Unfortunately, the new partnership that the USA had found with the Central Asian governments were not set in concrete, as most of the pacts have worn out the welcome and enthusiasm first given by these Central Asian host nations to USA.

Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the key proponents are no longer in power, with George Bush Jr unable even to get any interest in his autobiography, nor obtain any interests in speaking tours as Bill Clinton had ?

Where is the "Pac Americana" - when the USA is in debt up to its hair, and with Obama planning to spend its way out of the economic morass ?

You would have sounded more credible if you were more discerning with your efforts.

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course."

- This war on terrorism is bogus

Unfortunately, the bogus is in the myth that you have created with your undiscerning propagating of a shrill and alarmist message that distorts conventions and reality.

The line taken is so obvious that only the blind and the deaf cannot discern what you have preferred to perpetuate the distorted views by subverting the truth.

Add to that the close ties between the Bushes and Bin Laden, in fact Bush flew the Bin Laden family out of the US without even allowing the FBI to interview them and Bin Laden's CIA connection during the Afghan-Soviet war- even meeting up with the CIA in July 2001.

As for the 1993 WTC bombings, the NYT has already reported that Emad Salem, the ex-Egyptian intelligence officer who directed the bombers was an FBI informant who was supplied with explosives and instructions by the FBI itself.

Really, supporting radical Islam...that's a first.

The Bin Laden Family had never had any close ties with the black sheep of the family - Osama.

Shall we condemn your family for the stupidity in you ?

Spy vs Spy - has been a contest of nations that have set out to destroy the other by all means and methods to lull the other side to sleep, while surreptiously making covert plans to destroy the host.

The end game has yet to be seen.

Do you want to place your bets as to which side will win ?