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http://www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm
http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_26_01/U_S__Army_Officers_Say___Mossa/u_s__army_officers_say___mossa.html
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/26/wdrug26.xml
http://menewsline.com/stories/2001/september/09_25_6.html
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=SIEGE-COLLEGES-09-27-01&cat=AN
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--- Begin Message ---
Just Say No to Covert Smack
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Just Say No to Covert Smack
by Peter Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Let us open with a consideration of a scripture as related in
"Vineland," by Thomas Pynchon:
"Hearken unto me, read thou my lips, for verily I say that wheresoever
the CIA putteth its meathooks upon the world, there are also to be
found those substances which God may have created but the US Code
hath decided to control."
The AP takes a look at the drug production of our new enemies and
that of our new allies. I'm editing the story down very hard,
highlighting not the speculation (which is that opium poppies may
be replanted in what are now Taliban-controlled zones as soon as
this year, in expectation that either the Taliban may relax the
ban or that the Taliban may have been replaced by a government of
the United States' choosing) but the numbers:
AP via the new york times:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Drugs.html
Afghan Opium Production May Rise
by the associated press
[...]
In 2000, Afghanistan produced about 4,000 tons of opium [...].
In July 2000, the Taliban banned opium production, citing Islamic
principles. The State Department says 2001 production has fallen
to 81 tons, including 76 tons in areas controlled by the opposition.
Before Sept. 11, the United States had planned to provide about $2
million in aid for Afghan farmers to help compensate them for losses
resulting from opium eradication.
Additional aid was considered for farmers in areas controlled by
the opposition northern alliance. State Department and U.N.
officials said alliance leaders have agreed to help eradicate opium.
In March, the State Department said in its annual narcotics report
that the "northern alliance has taken no action of which we are
aware against cultivation and trafficking in its area."
*
So, let's review: the State Deparment knows that our new allies
have taken no action to curtail growing or trafficking of opium in
the areas they control.
To punish them for their continued cultivation, we propose to pay
them 2 million dollars.
The 2001 harvest of opium from Afghanistan is roughly 2 per cent
of the prior year's harvest. A 98 per cent reduction, attributable
entirely to the Taliban, who we are assured are committed to
destroying us in every way imaginable.
The State Department acknowledges that this year, our allies produced
94% of the opium crop coming out of Afghanistan; to everyone's
surprise, the Taliban complied with requests to deal with the
problem. Included amongst the surprised, no doubt, were the criminal
enterprises who earn money remarketing opium and heroin.
Part of what bedevils the arrogant lunatics who direct the more
aggressive arms of our foreign policy about the Taliban is perhaps
their effect on the drugs business. A huge change has been wrought
in this economy: the price of opium has apparently gone up fourfold
this year, largely as a result of the opium eradication. Street
drugs are one of the largest sectors of our economy. Could it be
that their profiteers have clever ways to funnel dough to lobbyists
and decision makers within the CIA who are neither obliged or
expected to ever explain their behavior? Gosh, d'you think? In
addition, of course, the intel boys are suffering an *immense* loss
of face amongst their international peers and in public. Commentary
from well-informed analysts and leaks from French, Italian and
Israeli security forces who'd been trying to warn their colleagues
here have been unrelenting. In all likelihood, by now the casualties
in New York and at the Pentagon are running a distant third on the
list of "reasons for revenge" for the covert foreign policy
specialists.
A single quick reminder that the US has both a public and a covert
foreign policy: early in the Clinton administration, Clinton's
policy in Haiti was to support the safe return of Jean Bertrand
Aristide.
The CIA's policy was quite the opposite; they planted slanders
about Aristide in the US press, and encouraged mass demonstrations
in Haiti expressly to prevent Aristide's return regardless of the
decisions of the Executive Branch of the US government, which the
CIA is nominally responsible to. Normally, the public and covert
arms move - as they do now - in harmony with one another. But the
CIA makes its own decisions in utter secrecy and when it disagrees
with the public branch, it pursues its policies without hesitation;
we don't know who helps lobby for those decisions or what the deals
are that are cut in those sessions.
We know *going into Afghanistan* that our new allies are major
drug exporters. Let's not let anyone set up an Air America during
this campaign, whereby the CIA ferries drugs, siphons a rake, and
and discreetly funds whatever hell they'd like to unaccountably
raise out in the world from the proceeds. Let's argue for real
oversight. Open audits.
Yes, you scum out there at osis.gov - I said "open audits."
"Secret retributions are always restoring the level, when disturbed,
of the divine justice. It is impossible to tilt the beam. All
the tyrants and proprietors and monopolists of the world in vain
set their shoulders to heave the bar. Settles forever more the
ponderous equator to its line, and man and mote, and star and sun,
must range to it, or be pulverized by the recoil."
from _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ by William James, as
quoted in "Vineland"
The pulverizing recoil for the snakes at Langley? We can't afford
to wait around for deus ex machina on this one, and additionally
we must work to assure that it is not only a secret but also a
public retribution for their decades of trying to tell people around
the world how they should comport themselves with regards to US
businesses, legal and illegal.
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