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Drugs | Site last updated on December 23rd, 2008
Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan
Sign Of The Times
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(SOTT)
-- Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report
containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking
from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug
abuse in the British army.
The channel's weekly news roundup Voskresnoye Vremya on 10
February noted that, according to the UN, the amount of opium being
produced in Afghanistan has more than doubled since the coalition
troops entered the country.
The report went on to show former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
visiting the country at an unspecified time. It said that he had met
almost 800 British troops during the visit. This is either a
coincidence or the working of cruel fate, but this is the exact number
of soldiers that the British army loses each year because of drug
abuse. This is more than the total combat losses of the royal army in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the correspondent noted.
The report then featured an extract from a BBC news website story
saying that the British army loses a whole battalion of troops a year
because of drug abuse (Research revealed that the story was published
on 14 December 2007).
The report went on to look at the wider problem of how to reverse the trend of
increasing opium production in Afghanistan.
Aleksandr Mikhaylov, the head of the department of interdepartmental
and informational activity at the Russian Drugs Control Agency, was
shown saying that economic measures to tackle the problem are
foundering on local corruption. The local authorities draw up
seriously forged lists in which an amount is recorded for the amount
destroyed and, in fact, the crop has not been destroyed at all. The
theft of the money to combat narcotics is going on and is flourishing,
he said.
The accusation that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking came
from Geydar Dzhemal, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia.
Without the control and connivance on the part of the special services
none of these things are possible. For example in Afghanistan, the CIA
and the special services are quite brazen. Under the protection of the
American army they meet the necessary people. They collect the stuff,
go to the Bagram airbase and they hand in a large consignment of
narcotics, which is then taken away, he said.
The report went on to say that heroin reached the Balkans via
Turkey, which has been a member of NATO since 1952 and is the USA's
closest ally in the region. It said it is another amazing
coincidence that Kosovo hosts the largest NATO base in Europe. The
correspondent added that there is a secret Interpol post next to this
base. Here they speak almost openly about Afghan heroin in American
planes, he noted.
A man captioned as Marko Nicovic, Interpol employee, explained that
90 per cent of heroin goes through the Albanian mafia, which is now
more powerful than the Sicilian mafia. He also alleged that members of
this mafia bribe European parliamentarians to support the independence
of Kosovo.
The report went on to link high levels of drug crime in Russia with
the US invasion of Afghanistan. Since the Americans unleashed war on
the Taleban, Russian crime labs have been working non-stop, the
correspondent observed over footage of a drugs raid and packages of
drugs being opened.
Aleksandr Mikhaylov, the head of the department of interdepartmental
and informational activity at the Russian Drugs Control Agency, was
shown saying that the production of narcotics in Afghanistan is getting
more professional and that drugs have taken a real stranglehold on the
Afghan economy. The situation today is that narcotics have become a
substance used for barter in Afghanistan, he observed.
For as long as heroin remains the only hard currency in the country
and until NATO and its military coalition do not resolve their own
issues, the agricultural proclivities here will hardly change, the
correspondent concluded.
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