A good mate of mine, Jack Barton, (from News Views and Abuse too!) just got
back from a trip to Afganistan, where he met, among other Afgan identities,
Ahmed Shah Masood, "Tiger Of Panjshir" and the military leader of the
Northern Alliance that is fighting those sculpture-vultures the Taliban.
Jack works as a freelance journalist and has travelled widely, including
manhy "hotspots" such Croatia in 1991 and Chiapas State, Mexico in 1994,
when the Zapatistas under Subcommandante Marcos occupied the entire
province.
To say he knows his shit is an understatement.
The Sunday Herald Sun printed a number of his stories while he was in
Afganistan but the best and biggest story for mine, well, just isn't being
told.
Afganistan produces about 60-70% of the worlds heroin, supplying all of
Western Europe, Russia and increasingly Australia. Shah Masood has done a
deal with the Russians to stop trading smack and opium and in return the
Russians are arming him to fight the goat-loving peasants that are the
Talibs. This is undeniably a good thing.
But in the 90% of Afganistan held by the Taliban, a strange thing has
occured. Desperate to win international aid and have Clinton's limited 1998
sanctions removed, the Talibs actually cut opium production by 97%
in 2000-01, mainly by burning crops and confiscating farming equipment.
This has resulted in about 100,000 poor peasants, denied the one cash crop
that grows in the harsh Afgan soils, becoming refugees and heading to
Pakistan to join 1.5 million of their compatriots who have been sheltering
in squalid camps since the Russians invaded in 1979.
This season there will be no opium harvested in Afganistan and thus a major
drop in world-wide heroin supplies, with accompanying crime waves as
addicts steal more and more to pay for more expensive, less pure heroin.
One would think the Americans would be over-joyed by this, especially
seeing as George Dubya "Coke And Whisky And Coke For Me Thanks" Bush is now
resting his boots on the Oval Office table, especially as not-so-subtle
messages were sent indicating the US would drop the sanctions if the
Taliban cut the drugs.
Alas, no! Due to its racist and inept ways, the US is convinced hepatitic
old Usuma bin Laden personally directs ALL international terrorism from his
cave near Kandahar, despite the fact he is on dialysis and the Taliban have
taken all his satellite communications equipment away.
That there are 2 billion Muslims on Earth and some of them, like the
Chechen Mujahideen currently defeating the Russian Army for the second time
in five years, are the best guerilla fighters in the world, seems to elude
the US - clearly Usuma bin Laden and his 500 ageing supporters are the root
of all evil!
So, because the strictly Muslim Talibs won't betray their culture, religion
and nation by giving bin Laden up to the Yanks to be tried by a kangaroo
court in Washington, the US has jacked yet harsher sanctions onto poor old
Afganistan.
The result? The Taliban are feeling, quite correctly, that the Americans cannot be
trusted to keep their promises and have now embarked on a massive,
industrial scale preparation for Season 2001-2. They are going to grow more
opium and sell more smack to more Western kiddies than in anybody in human
history. Jack saw new heroin labs and opium storage sheds being
constructed!
What a great result all around. The Taliban will never, ever again bother
with anything the West says, hence their glee in blowing the Buddhas at
Bamiyan. Usuma bin Laden will never be brought to trial for his ALLEGED
involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings and the world
will be flooded with yet more smack.
The Americans will continue to stand over nations like Australia that want
to look at other ways of dealing with drugs, because the War on Drugs is a
key tenet of any US domestic political agenda.
And what your other correspondent, who's name escapes me, writes about
previous US adventures in the world of smack is absolutely correct.
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, major player in Murder Incorporated and legendery
New York gangster cut a deal with the authorities in 1944. He had been
jailed in the '30's on prostitution charges although the Feds really wanted
to get him for heroin dealing as it was Luciano who basically invented modern,
organised drug dealing. The deal was that he would use his old Mafia
contacts in Sicily to prepare the way for invasion, sabotaging Nazi
equipment etc, if the Yanks let him stay there after the war.
Luciano's work saved thousands of Americans lives during the invasion, but
then he promptly began running heroin from Sicily back to the US, making
himself a millionaire and thousands of US kids dead as a result ... again
good work Yanks!
Similarly, it is widely accepted that the US allowed the Afgan Mujahideen
to pay for Stinger missiles with heroin during the 1980's Jihad against the
Russians. The CIA then on-sold this heroin, usually in their own backyard
and channeled resultant funds to the neo-fascist Contra idiots in
Nicaragua.
There are also a series of cases before the California "legal system"
seeking to demonstrate the CIA orchestrated the crack cocaine epidemic that
started in LA in the early 1980's, again to fund illegal adventures in
sovereign nations with democratically elected governments.
Enter the name Ricky "Freeway" Ross, the CIA man in South Central, into
google and have a suss of what comes up!
It has been alleged that the same CIA unit that recruited Freeway Ross was
involved in the slaughter of Archbishop Romero at the altar in El Salvador
in 1981.
Which brings me to the next part of my rant. Drugs, especially heroin, are
as much a POLITICAL issue as they are MEDICAL ... and not CRIMINAL.
Little Johnny's new anti-drug ads are a fantastic case in point. They are
clearly aimed at protecting his own constituency and nothing else.
Each of the three kids portrayed is white and middle class. They get into
white middle class Liberal voter problems with drugs and Howard offers them
white-middle class Liberal voter solutions.
What is the non English speaking Vietnamese woman in Springvale or
Cabramatta who's son is hopelessly addicted and forced to sell on the
street meant to make of these ads?
What is the family in Braybrook that has not been employed in three
generations and has not been off smack in the same three generations meant
to think?
What are people who are suspicious of orchestrated religion meant to think
of a drug policy overseen by a Salvation Army "officer"?
What are the close-knit Muslim community in Lakemba, who are responsible
for large areas of heroin turf in Sydney, meant to make of the
Judeo-Christian, anglo, middle-class feel of these ads?
But this comes as no surprise. And one doubts Labor would do any better.
Steve "Don't the rock the boat" Bracks is secretly over-joyed the
cannibalistic rabble that hold the majority in the Victorian Legislative
Assembly (once known as the Liberal Party) blocked his half-hearted
injecting rooms measures.
Bob Carr has shown a similar tendency to squeal on the big ones up in NSW.
Peter Beattie would no doubt advocate shooting addicts if polls suggested
it would fly and would probably execute them himself for the cameras.
Quick digression - I can hear readers mumbling to themselves -- "Kennett
was going to decriminalise drugs but wasn't he?" --- and I have to say dear
readers, if you believed that one, you'll believe anything.
Kennett would make noises about reforming drug laws as elections
approached. This ensured every spotty bong smoker in the marginal outer
Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne (IE - everybody aged between 12-25) voted
Liberal, especially in 1996, whereupon the Kennett Government promptly did
nothing.
I will leave the rant here but suffice to say, the Yanks and every other
politician in the world are the root cause of smack problems, not poppies
in the dusty valleys of Afganistan.
Cheers, Rory Cahill