New York Times
June 16, 2004
''Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the free world its first victory in the war on terror,'' Mr. Bush said. ''Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world.''
We actually won the war in Afghanistan but sadly in a complete reversal of fortune we have now lost it and George Bush lost it for us he is to blame. Like every president before him no matter what party they belong to the American Press loves to beat up on George W. Bush and who can blame them he deserves it so why aren't they going after him for what is perhaps his biggest blunder of all ? Over 100 Americans have died this year in Afghanistan nearly 600 Afghan Civilians have also perished and our NATO allies have had their largest number of troops slaughtered in the year 2007.
DER SPIEGEL
November 22, 2007
Over Half of Afghanistan under Taliban Control
Six years ago coalition forces headed into Afghanistan to eradicate the Taliban. Now an international think tank says more than half of the country is under the Taliban's thumb.
The current situation in Afghanistan is such a disaster that just a few days ago the former leader of the United Kingdoms Liberal Democratic Party (1988-1999) Lord Paddy Ashdown and Britain's most senior armed forces leader Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup have declared Afghanistan a lost cause at least so militarily.
Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown
Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.
Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."
Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.
British Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup
Stirrup: 'No military solution in Afghanistan'
There is no military solution to the struggle against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, according to Britain's most senior armed forces leader.
Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup said: "There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception."
Starting with the defeat of the Taliban in December 2001 until January 2005 the people of Afghanistan enjoyed the most peaceful period of their history since they were invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. There was still sporadic violence during those 3 years in Afghanistan but it was largely confined to isolated roads in areas far from the population centers. These were bandits who operate more like the James-Younger Gang than any terrorists yet every crime in Afghanistan is now labeled Taliban terrorism obviously some of these criminals were remnants of the defeated Taliban but not all. During those 3 years of relative peace we allowed the Afghan farmers to grow opium poppies then we suddenly changed that policy and began an aggressive opium crop eradication program that's when the "Taliban " insurgency really took off.
NEO-CON DRUG WARRIOR FLAG
Afghan Poppies Bloom
by Christian Parenti
Jan 2005
Until recently the Americans have openly avoided the issue of poppy cultivation, preferring to focus instead on hunting down the Taliban and Al Qaeda and training the new Afghan National Army.
But after three years of ignoring poppy cultivation and heroin production, the United States has suddenly changed course. In mid-November Washington pledged $780 million toward Afghanistan's war on drugs. If a rigorous campaign against poppy actually materializes, it could radically destabilize the relative calm that now obtains in much of Afghanistan.
In a harbinger of what a real war on drugs might bring, one farmer in Nangarhar whose son had been poisoned by the spraying told a local journalist,"If my son dies, I will join the Taliban, and I will kill as many Americans as I can find."
On the frontline in Taliban 'blood ground'
December 3, 2007
TURKISH DAILY NEWS
Afghanistan - Agence France-Presse
"This land belongs to terrorists,"says a district intelligence chief, referring to the compounds and trenches just south of the main road that leads into the small Afghan town of Garmser.
George W. Bush now adds another dubious honor to his already tarnished legacy because through his failed policy of opium crop eradication he is the responsible for the creation of the largest international illicit heroin producing nation in world history. The Bush regime's dangerously misguided poppy eradication campaign is causing a sharp divide in NATO the British , Dutch , and Canadians all view Bush's policy as a foolish strategy. They are correct because Bush is ensuring our defeat at the hands of the Taliban he is also causing the deaths of their troops as well as our own.
UNITED NATIONS 2007
Opium Amounts to Half of Afghanistan's GDP in 2007, Reports UNODC
BRUSSELS - 16 November. In its final Afghan Opium Survey for 2007 issued today, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that opium is now equivalent to more than half (53%) of the country's licit GDP. Speaking at a conference in Brussels on the future of Afghanistan, hosted by Princeton University, the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, announced that the total export value of opiates produced in and trafficked from Afghanistan in 2007 is about $4 billion, a 29 per cent increase over 2006.
Approximately one quarter of this amount ($1 billion) is earned by opium farmers. District officials take a percentage through a tax on crops (known as "ushr"). Insurgents and warlords control the business of producing and distributing the drugs. The rest is made by drug traffickers.
There is nothing new about opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Travelers reported seeing the crop 150 years ago. It was and remains part of the traditional culture. One would think by the Bush Administrations reaction towards our NATO Allies that they were wanting to allow illegal Heroin to flow unrestricted into our cities but their proposal is the solution to the problem it's the Bush policy of spraying poison that's created a monster and it has allowed our streets and Europe's to be flooded with illicit Heroin.
OCT 26 2007
The Americans are furious with Britain for allowing farmers to produce a bumper poppy harvest for the heroin trade.
The Netherlands warned during the Nato defence ministers' meeting on Wednesday that public pressure could force it to pull its 1,600 troops out next year if they do not get more support from other allies.
The European allies proposal which is far from radical actually comes from former US President Richard Nixon who faced a similar problem in Turkey 35 years ago when he tried to eradicate opium from Turkey when it failed the Nixon Administration came up with a solution they allowed the Turkish opium poppy farmers to sell their crops to our pharmaceutical industry legally but today even that is considered a surrender in the war on drugs.
US efforts to eradicate poppy production in Afghanistan are driving many Afghan peasants into the arms of the Taliban, and also enable the Taliban to finance itself through the black market drug trade. To fanatical drug warriors like Mark Souder all that matters is the continuation of crude repressive long failed strategies that help him get re-elected that's all that really matters to him. The Bush Administration has even adopted the least effective method of combating opium in fact President Nixon quit trying that failed policy 35 years ago in 1972 after his aide declared opium poppy eradication "one of those magic-wand statements born in ignorance."
Terrorism & Security
June 29, 2006
Christian Science Monitor
US-led Afghan mission is failing Drug policy analysts say 'militaristic' attempts to eradicate poppy crop driving farmers to Taliban.
A report by a Paris-based international security and policy advisory group, the Senlis Council, says that the US-led mission in Afghanistan is failing because US policies on eradicating the Afghan poppy crop aren't working.
The Independent reports that the group, which specializes in drug policies, predicts violence in the south of the country will escalate because the Taliban has been so effective at exploiting the anger "felt by farmers at the destruction of opium crops and by civilians who have suffered in US-led operations."
Lt-Gen David Richards, the British officer who is due to take over all NATO operations in Afghanistan with US troops under his command, warned the crop eradication program was driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban and the Western forces are creating new enemies.
Now that their prohibition policy has clearly created an International Drug Pipeline with Heroin flowing endlessly out of Afghanistan you would think if they were truly interested in winning their war on terror they would stop funding it. However the drug warriors prefer brutal and irrational attacks on their fellow man they even seem to enjoy their costly destructive system that has only seen repeated failure year after year. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the prohibitionists not only don't have the solution to this problem but they are the problem. With illicit drug money financing international terrorism we simply can't afford to leave this policy in the hands of hysterical Ideologues. We must take all narcotics out of the hands of the terrorists and put them into the hands of responsible government control. It's long overdue to treat drug addicts like citizens and not like criminals. It's also long overdue to treat the Afghan farmers like human beings and allow them to grow their crops in peace and allow them to sell their opium crops the same way India and Turkey sells theirs to the legitimate pharmaceutical industry.
U.N. REPORT LINKS DRUGS, ARMS TRAFFIC AND TERROR
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
NEW YORK TIMES
January 13, 1987
Illegal drug production and trafficking are closely linked to the illegal arms trade and international terrorism, according to a United Nations report made public today.
Illegal drug production and trafficking are closely linked to the illegal arms trade and international terrorism, according to a United Nations report made public today.
The report also says drug abuse in some countries is so serious that it threatens national security.
''These illicit activities are financed and masterminded by criminal organizations with international links and with accomplices in financial circles,'' it says. ''In certain regions, drug trafficking is closely interconnected with other major criminal activites,'' including ''trafficking in weapons, and are associated with subversion and international terrorism.''