Afgahanistan Opium

[Shanet Clark]

Anyone else read the New York Times this morning? Opium and Heroin production in Afghanistan is up 60% this year over last. Why is it that every time the United States initiates a war in Asia, the opium production skyrockets? Could it be that the colonels and military intelligence people have something to do with it? Lets see Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador, Afghanistan, all major sources of white powder drugs.

Just asking...

[RE: Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin In Southeast Asia]

[David Richardson]

In the case of Afghanistan, I'm sure that the revival of opium production is just another effect of the Bush administration's short-sightedness … which is also a reflection of the Reagan administration's short-sightedness.

They decided to nurture the warlords … who make their money partly from opium production … simply because it was easier at the time. The Taleban were unpopular … but they weren't universally unpopular … but that was an unpleasant truth that didn't fit with the ideology current at the time.

One of the bits of historical revisionism that I've read in many US sources is the idea that NATO has 'failed' in Afghanistan because it hasn't extended its jurisdiction outside of Kabul. But wasn't it the Bush administration that forbade NATO to work outside Kabul, so that the warlords who had supported their efforts to oust the Taleban wouldn't be disturbed?

[Shanet Clark]

Well, yes, indeed, the little war in Afghanistan;

universally hailed in light of the taliban ar-queada connection,

a good place to stop, afganistan.

I am more concerned with the rush to judgment in Iraq, a poorly planned rushed effort, built on scare tactics, brinksmanship and triumphalism.

Many moderates in the US and abroad, especially the U.K. laborites, feel very ill used by Mr. Bush and the Neocon policy group Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfeld.

Mr Powell and Mr. Tenet are interesting cases, under-utilized, overwhelmed.

Mr Powell should have quit rather than go to the UN on the "BS he placed in evidence on the Weapons of Mass Destruction. They didn't want to not find them and the didn't not find them until it was too late (Alabama colloquialism)

Mr. Powell's Doctrine would have endured as a real policy rule if he had quit and led resistance to initiated war with Iraq.

The no fly zones and the lack of WMDs mark the policy that was working, not perfect, but very constraining to Saddam.

I have seen no evidence military intelligence is in the Afghanistan drug trade, except for the deductive conclusions or recent past history. The increased market of opium commodity in an occupied country under our protectorate is disturbing. The warlords are distubing, as our allies and leaders in tow. The mujahadeen that metamorphasized into so many terrorist orgs and cells and armies and pressure groups, the CIA's trained paramilitary freedom fighters opposed to Soviet invasions, these are disturbing, as the new face of evil worldwide, the great enemy is our own duckling offspring.

Irag is a global chesspiece in the Middle East, the land equivalent to the Iran of the Shah...the neocons wanted the status quo ante Carter and they went for the weak link in the area, Saddam Hussein. The Shah, Nasser, Khadafi and Hussein participated in the oil price hike of the 1970s and all but the shah were militant baathists, our intrinsic interests intersected because of oil and long time Turkish, Austro-Hungarian and Russian interests in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean Black Sea area. The Suez in 1956 and all that.

Mr. Bush abandoned the peace process in the Middle East by declaring for Ariel Sharon in toto.

By waging a pre-emptive war on false premises, Bush now has built the precedent into the existing system. Whats to stop a pre-emptive strike of (example country) against (example #2 country)??

In 1967 and 1973 Israel had some reason to pre-empt the Syrian Egyptian Empires moves across the Jordan and up the Sinai peninsula.

But the pre-emptive war that brought Israel the angry west bank and lebanese, egyptian and jordanian zones, Mr. Bush has in spades, at a great cost, for little reason.

Mr Bush has his own West Bank type problem now , which he didn't have before.

WWMD?

[Tim Carroll]

Many moderates in the US and abroad, especially the U.K. laborites, feel very ill used by Mr. Bush and the Neocon [Neoconfederates] policy group Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfeld.

Mr Powell and Mr. Tenet are interesting cases, under-utilized, overwhelmed.

Mr Powell should have quit rather than go to the UN on the "BS" he placed in evidence on the Weapons of Mass Destruction....  Mr. Powell's Doctrine would have endured as a real policy rule if he had quit and led resistance to initiated war with Iraq.

The no fly zones and the lack of WMDs mark the policy that was working, not perfect, but very constraining to Saddam. [He was safely in a box]I have seen no evidence military intelligence is in the Afghanistan drug trade, except for the deductive conclusions or recent past history. The increased market of opium commodity in an occupied country under our protectorate is disturbing. The warlords are distubing, as our allies and leaders in tow. The mujahadeen that metamorphasized into so many terrorist orgs and cells and armies and pressure groups, the CIA's trained paramilitary freedom fighters opposed to Soviet invasions, these are disturbing, as the new face of evil worldwide, the great enemy is our own duckling offspring.

Irag is a global chesspiece in the Middle East, the land equivalent to the Iran of the Shah...the neocons wanted the status quo ante Carter and they went for the weak link in the area, Saddam Hussein.  The Shah, Nasser, Khadafi and Hussein participated in the oil price hike of the 1970s and all but the shah were militant baathists, our intrinsic interests intersected because of oil and long time Turkish, Austro-Hungarian and Russian interests in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean Black Sea area. The Suez in 1956 and all that.

In 1967 and 1973 Israel had some reason to pre-empt the Syrian Egyptian Empires moves across the Jordan and up the Sinai peninsula. [Not nearly as well in 1973 as in 1967; the Israelis were in deep doo-doo until it became a superpower confrontation]

But the pre-emptive war that brought Israel the angry west bank and lebanese, egyptian and jordanian zones [1967], Mr. Bush has in spades, at a great cost, for little reason.

Mr. Bush has his own West Bank type problem now , which he didn't have before.

WWMD?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Before long, we'll be sending arms to Libya and Afghanistan to fund secret wars against Iran and North Korea. All that opium will come in handy then. Nothing worse than deadheading an empty plane on the return trip. So how could this have happened with the Powell Doctrine clearly articulated and Powell himself being Secretary of State? Isn't the exit strategy the critical aspect of that doctrine? He sold out as badly as any I've seen. I understand about being a good soldier and all, but to contravene one's own doctrine so flagrantly is the height of hypocracy. But in a run for the presidency in 2008, he has proven to the gatekeepers that he will play ball. I loved the guy, agreed with the doctrine, and am left with nothing but disgust at how far an individual will go to sell one's soul for power.

Tim

[Shanet Clark]

The Powell Doctrine was the policy of curbing U.S. incursions oversees unless the threat was more substantial...this directly opposed the Imperial expansiveness of the Halliburton and Texas Dynasty wing of the Council of Foreign Relations. I believe Bush Jr. had to go considerabley against fact and the public will to build up the war initiative. The costs are staggering.

As a wag put it. "The pentagon gets a billion dollars a day for the last fifteen years, and it needs another trillion to take Iraq?"

Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia opposed the Iraqui expedition on long range historical grounds of American imperialism and watering down the

international consensus against persuing aggressive war without more dire and imminent threat than Iraq showed us. Byrd was this week one of two Senators to vote against the new National Intelligence Director reform bill. Doesn't trust Bush.

He saw the culture of US intelligence further twisted by the blithe effort to supply the 'facts' about Saddam which were not facts at all but only the opinion of the hawks around Bush.

Colin Powell was not a typical New Deal coalition southern black man,

he was raised by Jamaicans and he was a competent Post Vietnam military advisor and joint chief officer. I feel sorry for his realizations, his finding out the truth about the dignity of the Secretary of State among his peers.

You only really know the Power of the Pentagon when you leave it and look back from the State Department: a portfolio eroded by the current and future system.

If he had resigned at the first whiff of linkage between Iraq and Mohammad Atta;

then the Powell Doctrine and his legacy in history would stand far higher in status.

Edited December 10, 2004 by Shanet Clark

[Tim Carroll]

The Powell Doctrine was the policy of curbing U.S. incursions oversees unless the threat was more substantial...  He saw the culture of US intelligence further twisted by the blithe effort to supply the 'facts' about Saddam which were not facts at all but only the opinion of the hawks around Bush.

If he had resigned at the first whiff of linkage between Iraq and Mohammad Atta; then the Powell Doctrine and his legacy in history would stand far higher in status.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Shanet:

Firstly, as a Vietnam-era thinker, I would state my understanding of, and support for the Powell Doctrine as being the use of overwhelming force to guarantee success coupled with a clear exit strategy. I don't know that the political evaluation of threat level was a factor in his strictly military precepts.

Secondly, to allude to a "linkage between Iraq and Mohammed Atta" supports the Bush disinformation used to link 9/11 with Iraq. Is that really what you meant to imply? Atta was an agent for the Saudis, who are strangely very aligned with Israel against Islamic fundamentalism [as was our former bulwark: Saddam Hussein]. The ultimate danger, a nuclear fundamentalist Islamic state, is just one heartbeat away in Pakistan. 9/11 has destabilized the entire region to a degree that has been barely glimpsed thus far. We are looking ahead at some serious trouble, just the way our own fundamentalists like it: perpetual war against the heathens, with an ungodly proportion of our GDP devoted to the military.

Tim

Edited December 10, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Shanet Clark]

THERE WAS NO LINKAGE BETWEEN IRAQ AND ATTA ie 9/11!

Glad you pointed that out, I said Powell should have resigned when Bush improperly linked the World Trade Center event to Saddam Hussien's Iraq.

Powell not only counseled 'enough forces to do the job' and a 'clear exit strategy'

he stated that the strategic importance needed to rise to a standard high enough to establish true national and international support and command consensus.

The righties called this the Vietnam Syndrome and looked for ways to flex their muscle without the Soviet Union, they thought 1991 was a good time to push up the Assyrian Desert highlands above Basra, Mosul and Baghdad. Powell took the GOP false statesman's honors and lost his potentially greater Powell Doctrine legacy when he stayed in too long, and was so used in front of the UN.

The Powell Doctrine was the policy of curbing U.S. incursions oversees unless the threat was more substantial...  He saw the culture of US intelligence further twisted by the blithe effort to supply the 'facts' about Saddam which were not facts at all but only the opinion of the hawks around Bush.

If he had resigned at the first whiff of linkage between Iraq and Mohammad Atta; then the Powell Doctrine and his legacy in history would stand far higher in status.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Shanet:

Firstly, as a Vietnam-era thinker, I would state my understanding of, and support for the Powell Doctrine as being the use of overwhelming force to guarantee success coupled with a clear exit strategy. I don't know that the political evaluation of threat level was a factor in his strictly military precepts.

Secondly, to allude to a "linkage between Iraq and Mohammed Atta" supports the Bush disinformation used to link 9/11 with Iraq. Is that really what you meant to imply? Atta was an agent for the Saudis, who are strangely very aligned with Israel against Islamic fundamentalism [as was our former bulwark: Saddam Hussein]. The ultimate danger, a nuclear fundamentalist Islamic state, is just one heartbeat away in Pakistan. 9/11 has destabilized the entire region to a degree that has been barely glimpsed thus far. We are looking ahead at some serious trouble, just the way our own fundamentalists like it: perpetual war against the heathens, with an ungodly proportion of our GDP devoted to the military.

Tim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Tim Carroll]

THERE WAS NO LINKAGE BETWEEN IRAQ AND ATTA ie 9/11!

Glad you pointed that out, I said Powell should have resigned when Bush improperly linked the World Trade Center event to Saddam Hussien's Iraq.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Shanet:

You didn't say that. If you had, I wouldn't have reacted. If you had, for instance, said, "I should have said Powell should have resigned...." that would have been cool.

Tim

[Shanet Clark]

If he had resigned at the first whiff of linkage between Iraq and Mohammad Atta;

then the Powell Doctrine and his legacy in history would stand far higher in status.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Linkage here is a verb meaning to improperly bring together, I saw Bush practicing improper linkage of 9/11 to Iraq within days of 9/11...this is the Pretext For War James Bamford wrote about. Colin Powell, when he sensed that the others in the White House were going to link Iraq to al-Quaeda and Atta's behavior, he should have resigned, and this would have strengthened the Powell Doctrine into the future.

Edited December 11, 2004 by Shanet Clark