The legacy of the Opium Wars on Afghanistan
Historically, the lucrative opium trade sponsored by the British in the 19th Century created the foundation for the opium and heroin industry in modern-day Afghanistan, which today produces 92 percent of the world's supply of heroin.
Opium cultivation was introduced in the Golden Triangle region (Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand) in Southeast Asia as well as in other areas. The legacy of opium trade in Afghanistan is a result of both the historic drug trade sponsored by the British and the devastation of Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War. It is during this war that the large-scale commercial cultivation of opium was launched in Afghanistan, supported and protected by Pakistani and US intelligence. This supply was directed towards the Western heroin market.
The International Drug Trade: The Narcotics Market
If, in the course of their past history, Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal had been actively supporting the drug trade, what is preventing them now, especially with the mammoth profit yields and hard currency earnings that the illegal drug industry generates?
The economic principles guarded by the British government during the Opium Wars are still the same in modern times. Illicit drugs or narcotics are still a major commodity and an important component of international trade. Opium from Afghanistan constitutes a large portion of the world's narcotics market, which was estimated by the UN to be approximately $400 - 500 billion.
Narcotics are an instrument of US foreign policy, which also support Western financial interests. The CIA, in collaboration with other intelligence agencies such as the Pakistani ISI working in Afghanistan, has set up covert operations that support the drug trade.
"Our conclusion remains that the first target of an effective drug strategy should be Washington itself, and specifically its own connections with corrupt, drug-linked forces in other parts of the world. We argued that Washington's covert operations overseas had been a major factor in generating changes in the overall pattern of drug flows into the United States, and cited the Vietnam-generated heroin epidemic of the 1960s and the Afghan-generated heroin epidemic of the 1980s as analogues of the central concern of this book: the explosion of cocaine trafficking through Central America in the Reagan years, made possible by the administration's covert operation to overthrow the Nicaraguan Sandinistas [vis-à-vis Iran-Contra] (Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Jonathan Marshall and Peter Dale Scott, April 1998)."
Based on 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes 'the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.'
Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized and the drug trade is protected. Amply documented, the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.
The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics.
Rise of opium trade under NATO presence
The supply of opium and heroin has been rising. This is happening right under NATO's nose. NATO claims that it has been tolerating some growth of opium so as not to incite violence against NATO troops.
Afghanistan must be demilitarized. To do so does not take a standing army but the rooting out of weapons and an end to the flow of illicit narcotics. It is this outward flow of narcotics that creates an inverse, inward flow of weapons into Afghanistan.
The multi-billion dollar (US) heroin industry of Afghanistan must be addressed. Instead of eliminating the drug trade, foreign military presence has assisted in restoring it.
NATO, as an entity, has become an accessory to major narcotics proliferation and criminal activity. Opium is not truly being reduced: in fact all the figures show that it is on the rise. This is happening under the eyes of NATO as confirmed by several media reports.
Pledges to eliminate opium and heroin not kept but "Grossly Violated"
Afghanistan is central to the international narcotics market and the production of heroin. According to the UK Guardian (October 3, 2001) Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, presented the Anglo-American invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a means to eradicate the illicit drug trade. "The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people buying their [Afghan] drugs on British streets," said Tony Blair. "That is another part of their [the Taliban's] regime that we should seek to destroy."
The British Prime Minister's justifications for war as a matter of public record have proven to be rhetoric, in an attempt to gain public support. Tony Blair's statement is ironic because British and NATO troops have allowed the cultivation of opium to go unchecked in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.
By the virtue of the British Prime Minister's own statements and pledges, he is guilty of negligence and the sacrificing of British lives. Stopping the cultivation of opium to save British lives was used as a justification in 2001 for the invasion of Taliban controlled Afghanistan. The invasion did not contribute to curtailing the cultivation of opium, but had quite an opposite effect.
Money Laundering and International Banks
The IMF has reported that "the aggregate size of money laundering in the world could be somewhere between 2-5% of the world's GDP. Using 1996 statistics, these percentages would indicate that money laundering ranged between US $590 billion and US $1.5 trillion [in 2003]."
American money laundering in the United States and internationally is a key issue. 91% percent of the billions of US dollars spent on cocaine in the United States stays in the United States. It is deposited in the US and Canadian banking system. The narcotics trade helps accumulate hard currency into the American and Canadian economies.
The extent of money laundering in the United States can be grasped when it is realized that practically every American dollar in circulation in the United States contains "microscopic traces" of cocaine. This is no mere urban legend, but a verified fact supported by scientists, forensics experts and the FBI. Traces of cocaine on American paper money signify the extensive use of cash as a means of payment in drug deals.
Most money laundering is done through the international commercial banking system. American domestic banks launder an estimated 100 billion USD of drug money annually. This includes several of America's largest financial institutions.
The banking systems in North America and Western Europe seem to be serving as points of currency accumulation from the rest of the world that are siphoning hard capital or currency (cash).
César Gaviria Trujillo, the former President of Colombia and the former Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), has said, "If Colombians are the big fish of the drug trade then Americans are the whale," and demanded that the United States stop money laundering activities inside US borders and devote more resources to lowering domestic drug consumption in the United States.
The Pakistani military and its military oligarchs also benefit from the international narcotics economy. According to journalist Rahul Bedi, "Other than ruling Pakistan directly and indirectly since [Pakistani] independence and controlling its [Pakistan's] nuclear, defense and foreign policies, the military remains the country's largest and most profitable business conglomerate."
Raoof Ali Khan, the Pakistani representative to the UN Commission on Narcotics had said in 1993 that "there is no branch of government [in Pakistan] where drug corruption does not pervade," and the CIA, itself a notorious force behind international narcotics proliferation, reported to the US Congress in 1994 that heroin had become "the life-blood of the Pakistani economy and political system."
Link between Kosovo and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan
Money laundering, drug trafficking, and illegal weapons purchases are closely aligned and form an international trinity. In the Balkans this started with the criminalization of the Albanian Republic (Republika e Shqipërisë) and later Kosovo (Kosovo i Metohija in Serbo-Croatian /Kosovë in Albanian).
Kosovo and Albania play an important role in the Eurasian Drug Corridor. The virtually independent Serbian province of Kosovo, primarily inhabited by ethnic Albanians, has a strong link with NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan. Kosovo is where part of the opium and heroin is forwarded from Afghanistan for entry into European markets and North America. Both Afghanistan and Kosovo are under Anglo-American domination, "democratization," undergoing "the process of nation-building," with US military bases on their respective territories and in the orbit of NATO.
The Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and Albania which are saturated with illicit drugs and weapons are also part of the Eurasian Drug Corridor. The Eurasian Drug Corridor is where the flow of drugs and arms are facilitated.
The drug and weapons streams also run in opposite directions. Weapons flow inwards into the Eurasian Drug Corridor, while illicit drugs or narcotics flow outwards.
The Kosovo-centred illicit narcotics industry is worth billions of dollars a year in transport and exchange fees.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its affiliates or extensions in Macedonia and Albania, and to some extent in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, play an important role in drug trafficking and smuggling. The KLA are middlemen in the narcotics industry. They in turn use part of the proceeds of the illegal narco-economy to arm themselves and to cement their control over numerous aspects of commerce and life in Kosovo, the Albanian-inhabited areas of western Macedonia, and Albania.
Billy I Ahmed is Columnist and Researcher.
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