BLOG

The Taliban's war on drugs

The US government is again angered by the antics of the Taliban in Afghanistan for renewing their ban on poppies (opium/heroin). See the first 6 minutes of this news report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm7Ix9Kmqc4&ab_channel=Firstpost

Here is another new article about this.

https://wtop.com/asia/2022/04/afghanistans-taliban-announce-ban-on-poppy-production/

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban on Sunday announced a ban on harvesting poppies, even as farmers in some parts of the country began extracting the opium from the plant that is needed for making heroin.

The Taliban warned farmers that their crops will be burned and that they can be jailed if they proceed with the harvest. The harvest and planting seasons vary across Afghanistan. In the Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar the harvesting has begun but in the east of the country some farmers are just beginning to plant their crop.

In desperately poor Afghanistan the ban seems certain to further impoverish its poorest citizens at a time when the country is in an economic free fall.

The decree was announced by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at a news conference in the capital of Kabul. The order also outlawed the manufacturing of narcotics and the transportation, trade, export and import of heroin, hashish and alcohol.

The ban is reminiscent of the previous Taliban rule in the late 1990s when the movement espousing a harsh interpretation of Islam outlawed poppy production. At that time, the ban was implemented countrywide within two years, and according to the U.N. largely helped eradicate poppy production.

The West pretends that they care about the poor farmers in Afghanistan. No, they care only about the opium that they produce. If opium had been so profitable to the farmers, they would all be quite rich today. It seems to me they would be wealthier if they grew food.

The article continues…

“Washington spent more than $8 billion trying to eradicate poppy production in Afghanistan during its nearly 20-year war, which ended with the Taliban takeover of the country in August.”

If Washington really wanted to eradicate poppy production, then why are they now complaining that the Taliban is actually doing so? I think the $8 billion that US taxpayers sent to “eradicate poppy production” was actually used to perpetuate the drug trade, and this is why Washington failed in its “war on drugs.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/taliban-war-on-drugs-poppy-ban-opium-heroin-afghanistan/

America’s “war on drugs,” launched by President Richard Nixon in 1971, raged for more than half a century but hardly put a dent in the Afghan opium trade.

The country’s farms account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s opium production but even the American invasion in 2001 did little to disrupt the flow of drugs out of the nation.

But now, where the world’s drug enforcement community has failed, the Taliban themselves are succeeding.

When the US was occupying Afghanistan, we saw pictures of US soldiers protecting the poppy fields. That was the reality of the “war on drugs.” In my view, ensuring the continued production of heroin was the real reason we took over the country. Osama bin Laden was just the convenient excuse for invading the country. The so-called “war on drugs” was a war to take over the drug trade from the drug lords, forcing them to pay a percentage of their profits to the CIA (Cocaine Import Agency).

When the Taliban was in power back in the 1990’s, they banned opium production, and it nearly broke the banking system in the West. Ron has often talked about this, as he has the news article describing this.

The sale of drugs by the CIA has long been established, laundered by the big banks, and it is said to be the major source of funding their black ops. Movies have been made about this as well. I knew a man who used to fly their cocaine to America from Columbia. Prior to this, we fought the Vietnam war under the pretext of fighting communism, so that the CIA could take over the Southeast Asian drug trade.

But Afghanistan has been producing most of the opium in the world markets, much of which has been used to make heroin. The West is complaining that their ban will cause a drug shortage! I suspect that their real complaint is that it may cause a money shortage to pay for their illegal operations. This comes at a time when banks are already suffering from illiquidity. The Taliban may just nudge the banks into bankruptcy when they are most vulnerable.