| -Caveat Lector-
The New Opium War: How U.S. Lost the War on Drugs
Charles R. Smith Thursday, Sept. 26, 2002 The ancient poet Homer once wrote the sad tale of
Ulysses, the hero of the Trojan War. Ulysses expected a short and victorious
trip home, after having defeated the Trojans with his innovative ruse of the
wooden horse. However, his voyage was a black adventure cursed by the gods. One
such curse occurred on the island of the Lotus Eaters. "On the tenth day we
reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind
of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their
mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent
two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be,
and they had a third man under them.
"They started at once, and went about among the
Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was
so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not
even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and
munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return.
"Nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced
them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the
rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and
leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the Grey sea
with their oars."
Opium Today
More than 2,000 years ago Homer described the curse
of drug addiction. Today, the ancient curse is carried on in the form of the
opium poppy. The poppy itself has zero value except for the narcotic drugs it
produces.
Most of the world's opium is grown in two areas of
the world, Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia. After it is harvested the vast
majority is sold locally as pure opium, addicting millions inside China, Burma,
Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran and other nations along the
Asian trading routes.
The remainder is reprocessed into heroin for resale
in Europe and America.
It is estimated that more than 20 million people
are addicted to heroin worldwide. In 2001, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
concluded that America has more than 100,000 heroin addicts.
Heroin is known to produce more than $20 billion in
profits for criminal organizations and terrorist factions around the world,
including the Taliban and al-Qaeda factions in Afghanistan, which provided
protection to opium producers for a large fee.
Dominated by Chinese Gangs
Southeast Asia heroin trafficking links run from independent brokers and shippers in Asia through overseas Chinese criminal populations to ethnic Chinese criminal wholesale distributors in the United States. In the United States, ethnic Chinese criminals rely upon local criminal organizations for the distribution of heroin. According to the U.S. Justice Department, "despite the recent decline in
the trafficking of Southeast Asian heroin in the United States, Chinese criminal
groups remain the most sophisticated heroin trafficking organizations in the
world."
Asian heroin shipments destined for U.S. markets often travel through
China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea.
U.S.-based ethnic Chinese heroin traffickers control distribution within the
United States, principally in the Northeast and along the East Coast.
During the late 1990s, Vancouver, British Columbia, emerged as a key
operational headquarters for ethnic Chinese criminal elements. These criminal
groups established close connections with North American gangs of Asian descent
and began to transport heroin to the United States, mainly to the East Coast.
Afghanistan's Role
In comparison, a large portion of Southwest Asian heroin is consumed in
Europe, Pakistan and Iran. However, traffickers operating from Middle Eastern
locations smuggle heroin to ethnic enclaves in the United States.
Criminal groups composed of ethnic Lebanese, Pakistanis, Turks and Afghans
are all involved in supplying the drug to U.S. groups for retail distribution.
Heroin traffickers and wholesale distributors rarely conduct heroin
business with persons not of Southwest Asian or Middle Eastern backgrounds. The
ethnic aspect of Southwest Asian heroin has made it prevalent in areas with
large Southwest Asian populations.
The trends are not good. U.S. Department of Justice statistics indicate
that U.S. federal law enforcement authorities seized 1,575 kilograms of heroin
in 2000, compared to 1,149 kilograms in 1999. The United States reflects only a
portion of the global statistics for opium and heroin production, which by even
the most conservative estimates are up more than 10 percent in 2002.
Code Name 'Lotus Eater'
Yet, there is another story about the Lotus Eaters. In the 1990s, a major
U.S. university, working closely with an U.S. Army biological warfare lab,
developed a genetically altered fungus code-named "Lotus Eater." The Lotus Eater
fungus is specifically designed to attack the opium poppy plant and nothing
else.
The Lotus Eater fungus is reported to be so effective that one potent
strain could eliminate almost all the global opium crop within five years of its
release. A second, less potent strain was also developed which could wipe out a
single season of poppy crop exposed to the fungus, but it could not reproduce
itself beyond a short lifetime.
It is here, after the two strains were developed, that the story of the Lotus Eater turns upside down. The Clinton administration suddenly withdrew all research monies, closed the university site and took the fungus strains away. No further research, or development has ever been recorded. In 2002, the U.S. military reportedly offered to use the Lotus Eater fungus
on Afghan opium crops. The plan was to use U.S. control of Afghan airspace to
seed the fungus from highflying C-130 Hercules transports.
Yet the Bush administration reportedly turned down the idea. According to
high-level intelligence sources, the plan to end opium production inside
Afghanistan was nixed by the CIA. The reason given was quite simple.
Apparently, there are several large factions inside Afghanistan and
Pakistan, friendly to the U.S., that directly depend on funding from opium.
These factions threatened to overthrow the Afghan and Pakistani governments if
they were not allowed to continue trafficking heroin and opium.
The specter of a nuclear-armed Pakistan being run by radical opium gangs
put the Lotus Eater plan on hold. The CIA reportedly noted that if Lotus Eater
was released into the poppy fields that several Southeast and Southwest Asian
governments would fall.
The consequences of a Lotus Eater attack directly effected corrupt elements
inside the Russian and Chinese armies as well as the intelligence service inside
Pakistan. The disruption of trade could even start a world war in Asia.
It is here that our dark tale ends. The opium and heroin trade continue to
flourish. The poppy fields continue to fuel the bank accounts of radical
terrorists and addict millions in its wake.
The most powerful nation on earth is a helpless giant, unable to stop the
devastating trade even when armed with the ultimate weapon. We have become the
Lotus Eaters.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/26/150144.shtml "A nation without borders is not a nation."
--President Reagan
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