The War in Afghanistan: Drugs, Money Laundering and the Banking System
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
October 17, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca
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"The iron law of the market is that demand breeds supply." -The
Economist
The landlocked state of Afghanistan sits at the crossroads of Central
Asia, the Indian sub-continent, and the Middle East. It is geo-
strategically and economically important for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Afghanistan is a major geo-strategic hub that conveniently
flanks Iran, the former Soviet Union, and China. Afghanistan's
location has always been significant. For most of its history, the
geographic area has been a frontier between Iran, India, and China.
Later, since its Independence from Iran, it has acted as a buffer
state between Iran, Tsarist Russia succeeded by the Soviet Union, and
India under British colonial rulelater succeeded by the Republic of
India and Pakistan. Afghanistan is an ideal place to create a wedge
between the major Eurasian powers and to establish a permanent
military presence for future operations in Eurasia.
Secondly, Afghanistan also constitutes a doorstep into energy-rich
Central Asia, which bypasses the territories of Iran, the Russian
Federation, and China. This is an important factor because external
forces from outside the region such as the United States or Britain
can use Afghanistan to circumvent these rival regional powers. A
pipeline corridor running through Pakistan and Afghanistan from the
oil and gas fields of Turkmenistan and Central Asia has been a major
project for the United States and its oil corporations for years.
NATO combat missions, under the auspices of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are concentrated in Southwest and
Northwest Afghanistan where the strategic oil and gaz pipeline
corridor from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean is to be located.
Prior to September 11, 2001, Washington had been involved in
negotiations with the Taliban government with a view to securing this
oil and gas route.
U.S. oil and gas interests in Afghanistan have a direct incidence on
the post-Taliban political setup. The Afghan President Hamid Karzai
was initially selected (December 22, 2001) by the U.S. government and
the "international community". This choice, however, was the result
of the lobbying by Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL). Karzai
was not only a former employee of UNOCAL, he had also been
collaborating with the Taliban government, in negotiations pertaining
to the construction and royalties of the prprosed trans-Afghan
pipeline. In fact, several UNOCAL officials, such as Zalmay
Khalilzad1, were appointed as U.S. special envoys in both Afghanistan
and Anglo-American occupied Iraq.
The NATO offensives in the western half of Afghanistan can be seen as
a means to securing the territory needed for the building of a geo-
strategic pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan through Afghanistan.
There even seem to be plans in reconfiguring both the boundaries of
Afghanistan and Pakistan to facilitate the flow of oil and gas from
Central Asia to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Once built, the
pipeline corridor and the terminal on the Indian Ocean coastline
would be a major victory over competing Russian, Chinese, and Iranian
energy interests in the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. This would be
the United States' second geo-strategic victory after the opening of
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal, another terminal that
circumvents around Russia, Iran, and China.
Control of Afghanistan is vital in deciding the future balance of
power in Central Asia and Eurasia, thus whosoever controls
Afghanistan has great leverage in the resource-rich Eurasian landmass.
Thirdly, Afghanistan constitutes a major area of production of opium,
which feeds the illicit narcotics trade out of Afghanistan. This is
significant since illicit trade in narcotics is classified third in
terms of World trade turnover, after oil and the trade in weapons.
The Half-forgotten Opium Wars
Opium and illicit narcotics have played a relatively unknown, yet
historic and central, role in world economics and international
relations. There were major wars launched because of opium. Britain
and British companies had shared interests in the trade and
trafficking of narcotics. One of these companies was the British East
India Company (BEIC). India was administered and governed by the
British East India Company. Essentially corporate interests and
government interests in British-ruled India and British colonies were
unified and overlapping.
Whole cultures and nations have historically been warped and changed
to appease latent or unseen economic interests. British commercial
interests have coerced change in many societies and places. For
example, the British coerced Iran into replacing coffee with British
tea. Iranian society gave up their national drink, coffee, for tea
from India simply because of British commercial interests and
demands. To this day, Iranian bistros are called "coffee houses," but
they primarily serve tea.
In the Far East and Southeast Asia, opium was an integral part of
European trade. At its peak in the mid 1880s, opium was one of the
most valuable commodities circulating in international trade.2
British exports of opium out of India had systematically helped
weaken Chinese resistance to foreign or colonial powers and also
helped balance the enormous trade deficit Britain had with China.
The British corporations managing India not only coerced the Chinese
government into letting drug-addiction run rampant for mere economic
interests, but also coerced Indian farmers into growing opium. In
fact growing opium was an irregular practice amongst farmers in
India. The British effectively forced many Indian farmers into
becoming dependent on opium cultivation for a living. The local
economies of many communities of India were systematically driven
away from food farming into the cultivation of cash crops for British
merchants. Subsistence crops gave farmers some form of autonomy from
market forces and guaranteed survival while cash crops made farmers
dependent on the British and the opium market for survival. Thus
India was also entrenched deeper into British control and
exploitation from British companies.3
One of the causes of the collapse of Imperial China or the Chinese
Empire was the British-sponsored drug-addiction in Asia. Drug
addiction was skyrocketing in China and soon the Chinese were forced
to ban opium consumption by their population due to its damaging and
destructive effects on their society, health, productivity, economy,
and culture.
Opium was very important to Britain. Opium addiction was also used to
exploit Asian nations, populations, and economies. The profits of
opium were so significant and lucrative that the British went so far
as to declare war on China for encraoching upon the trade in opium.
Basically an unjust war was declared by Britain on China.4
The Chinese Empire reaffirmed its ban on opium imports in 1799, but
British companies and merchants merely ignored the ban and continued
to import opium into China. The criminalization of opium in China
helped raise the market price of opium.
The situation in China was comparable to the prohibition of alcohol
in the United States from 1920-1933, except that opium had a deep
impact on Chinese society and was draining capital from the Chinese
economy. By the 1830s, the value of opium exports had outstripped
that of international tea exports for the British. In 1838 the death
penalty was legally imposed on all drug dealers, traffickers, or
smugglers of Chinese citizenship by the Chinese authorities. Even
then, the British were exempted from the penalties of the law because
the Chinese government did not want to create problems with Britain.
By 1838-1839 the Chinese authorities had no choice, but to enforce
the law prohibiting opium imports spearheaded by British companies
and merchants with the full support of the British government. China
was slipping towards economic disaster as China's gold and silver
reserves were being used to pay for opium imports, leading to a
massive outflow of capital from China to Britain. The Chinese could
no longer afford to tolerate the British narcotics industry in Asia.
The Chinese refused to allow anymore illicit imports of narcotics
into China which the British government and European companies had
blatantly ignoring and violated.5
The British declared war in 1839 on China and sent a naval force and
British troops from India into China. China was defeated and forced
to sign an unjust treaty, the Treaty of Nanjing (1842). This led to
further economic exploitation of the Chinese and another war. The
Second Opium War was fought with the Treaty of Nanjing as its
justification and led to further subjection of China by foreign and
colonial powers, including the stationing of foreign troops in the
Chinese capital, the ceding of Hong Kong and Macau, and the loss of
Chinese territory.
Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, made an important
statement in reference to the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing to end
the First Opium War that confirms the importance of the narco-economy
for Britain:
"There is no doubt that this event [the ending of the Opium Wars with
the Treaty of Nanjing], which will form an epoch in the progress of
the civilization of the human races, must be attended with the most
important advantages to the commercial interests of England [meaning
Britain]"6
The Legacy of the Opium Wars on Modern Afghanistan
Historically, the lucrative opium trade sponsored by the British in
the 19th Century created the foundations for the opium and heroin
industry in modern-day Afghanistan, which today produces 92 percent
of the World's supply of heroin.7
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 in Afghanistan is a result of the both the
historic drug trade sponsored by the British and the devastation of
Afghanistan during the American-Pakistani initiated Soviet-Afghan
War.8 It is during the Soviet-Afghan war that the large scale
commercial cultivation of opium was launch in Afghanistan, supported
and protected by Pakistani and U.S. 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 it from occurring today, 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
U.N. to be approximately $400-500 billion.9
Narcotics are an instrument of U.S. 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 which 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)
Michel Chossudovsky has also clarified the economic mechanisms behind
the illicit narcotics trade:
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. 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.
(Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?, Global Research September
21, 2006)
The Rise of Opium under the presence of NATO in Afghanistan
In economic terms, demand is what creates supply. 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 (U.S.) 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 U.K. Guardian (October 3,
2001) Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, presented the Anglo-
American invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a means to
erradicate the illicit durg 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, quite the opposite.
Money Laundering and International Banks
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has report that "the aggregate
size of money laundering in the world could be somewhere between 2-5%
of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Using 1996 statistics,
these percentages would indicate that money laundering ranged between
U.S. $ 590 billion and U.S. $ 1.5 trillion [in 2003]."10
American money laundering in the United States and internationally is
a key issue. Ninety-one percent (91%) of the billions of U.S. 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.11
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 signifies the extensive use of cash as a means
of payment in drug deals.12
Most money laundering is done through the international commercial
banking system. American domestic banks launder an estimated $100
billion (U.S.) of drug money annually. This includes several of
America's largest financial institutions. 13
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 U.S. 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 [from India] and controlling its
[Pakistan's] nuclear, defense and foreign policies, the military
remains the country's largest and most profitable business
conglomerate."14
Raoolf Ali Khan, the Pakistani representative to the U.N. 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 U.S. Congress in 1994 that heroin had
become "the life-blood of the Pakistani economy and political
system."15
The 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 U.S. 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 also 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.
Criminalization in the Balkans: How the Narcotics Economy was Launched
According to Chossudovsky (The Globalization of Poverty and the New
World Order), Albania and Kosovo became, as of the early 1990s, an
important staging point for Afghan opium and heroin trade into
Western Europe.
A triangular trade in oil arms and narcotics had developed largely as
a result of the embargo imposed by the international community
[namely the United States, the E.U., and NATO members] on Serbia and
Montenegro [the last two states of the Yugoslav Federation] and the
blockade enforced by Greece against Macedonia. In turn, the collapse
of industry and agriculture had created a vacuum in the economic
system which boosted the further expansion of illicit trade. The
latter [illicit trade, i.e. smuggling and drug trafficking] had
become a "leading sector," an important source of foreign exchange
and a fertile ground for the criminal mafias.
(
)
The trade in narcotics and weapons was allowed to [deliberately]
prosper despite the presence, since 1993, of more than 800 American
troops at the Albanian-Macedonian border with a mandate to enforce
the embargo. (
) The revenues from oil and narcotics were used to
finance the purchase of arms (often in terms of direct
barter): "Deliveries of oil to Macedonia (skirting the Greek embargo
[in 1993-1994]) can be used to cover heroin, as do deliveries of
kalashnikov rifles (
) in Kosovo."
These extensive deliveries of weapons were tacitly accepted by the
Western powers on geo-political grounds; both Washington and Bonn
[Germany] had favoured the idea of a "Greater Albania" [controlled by
the Anglo-American alliance and Franco-German interests] encompassing
Albania, Kosovo, and parts of [western] Macedonia. Not surprisingly,
there was a "deafening silence" of the international media regarding
Kosovo arms-drugs trade: "the trafficking [of drugs and arms] is
basically being judged on its geo-political implications (
) In
Kosovo, drugs and weapons trafficking is fuelling geo-political hopes
and fears."
Disinformation from NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan
Eric Margolis, a self-professed conservative journalist has said:
"Do not believe what OUR media and politicians are telling us about
Afghanistan. Nearly all the information we get about the five-year-
old war in Afghanistan comes from U.S. and NATO public relations
officers or `embedded' journalists who merely parrot military
handouts. Ask yourself, when did you last read a report from a
journalist covering Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces?"
(September 19, 2006)16
The Canadian government, amongst others, has started a program of
training military personnel to become journalistssomething that goes
beyond the controlled information of embedded reporting.17
It must also be recognized that the insurgency is also in part a
resistance movement in many regions of Afghanistan. The
media "erroneously" calls this movement the "Taliban". On the ground
in Afghanistan, however, NATO troops identify the Afghan insurgents
as Anti-Coalition Militias (ACMs). This title reflects the fact that
NATO is fighting a diverse multi-ethnic movement in Afghanistan that
sees NATO as an occupation forces. The issue of human rights abuses
by NATO troops and security contractors (mercenaries) has also
incited violence amongst the inhabitants of Afghanistan.
In addition to media misinformation there are many misleading or
distorted reports. There are also individuals claiming to represent
the Afghan people and championing human rights such as the Afghani
President and members of the unelected Loya Jirga (Afghani pseudo-
Parliament). Many in the international ant-war movement have been
deceived by members of the Loya Jirga who have pretended to champion
human rights and women's rights against the United States and the
warlords, while in fact they are also supported being by the US.
This is a form of "manufactured dissent", an opposition ("counter-
discourse") which creates the illusion that there is a real political
opposition within Afghanistan> it is also used to mislead the anti-
war movement.
The Taliban: Creation of the U.S. Intelligence Apparatus
The Taliban are a creation of the CIA and Pakistan's Inter Service
Intelligence (ISI). The Taliban government was set up in 1996 as an
Anglo-American client state.
A fallacy is the premise that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was
the antecedent of extremism and militarism in Afghanistan. In
reality, the creation of extremism in Afghanistan was the joint
collaboration of U.S. intelligence and the Pakistani ISI, in the
largest CIA operation in history. The construction of a war in
Afghanistan was engineered by the United States, which gave birth to
the Afghan Mujahideen and eventually the Taliban. According to
Zbigniew Brezinski, the United States started operations to create a
civil war in Afghanistan vis-à-vis Pakistani links before Soviet
intervention on December 24, 1979.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski, during an
interview with the Nouvel Observateur disclosed, that the official
directive for the covert support of creating a civil war and
opposition to the pro-Soviet Afghan government by the United States
started on July 3, 1979.18 This was six months before Soviet troops
even entered Afghanistan. There are indications that U.S.
intelligence operations in Afghanistan in support of the Mujahideen
and other groups predate 1979.
The Return of the Taliban, the manipulation of the Anti-War Movement,
and the Demonization of the Northern Alliance
The United States and NATO appear to be preparing for the
reinstatement of the Taliban into the Afghan political arena, to the
detriment of the Northern alliance.
U.S. Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee (Republican) has called for the
inclusion of the Taliban into the Afghan government.19 This is
significant because Pakistan has made agreements with the Pakistani
based proxies of the Taliban in Waziristan,20 Bill Frist is both
Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate and a leading Republican. NATO is
also involved in dialogues with the Taliban, most probably through
Pakistani channels and President Hamid Karzai.
The Taliban did serve U.S. interests and there seems to be a new role
emerging for the Taliban as the potential stewards of U.S. interests
in Afghanistan once again. The Taliban for the most part were
reliable allies of the United Statesmore so than the present groups
in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan who were allies of Moscow, Tehran, and
Beijing and could still return to their old camps. The Taliban could
also prove more cooperative in relation to the United States, as in
the past.
The Northern Alliance, although not angelic, has been heavily
discredited and demonized. This seems to be the ground work for
further operations and duplicity in Afghanistan.
There are also attempts to manipulate the anti-war movement(s) into
facilitating these objectives. The United States and the mainstream
media have portrayed the Northern Alliance as an ally of the US, when
in fact the Northern Alliance leadership prior to 9/11 was opposed to
US interventionism. In this regard, there are indications that
Pakistani intelligence (ISI) in collaboration with individuals within
the Northern Alliance, was involved in the assassination of the
leader of the Northern alliance Ahmad Shah Massoud. Shah Massoud was
the object of a kamikaze assassination two days before the tragic
events of 9/11.
Ironically, the United States is using anti-U.S. foreign policy
feelings emanating from the ant-war movement(s) and the general
public to actually further U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Global Research Contributing Editor Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an
independent writer and analyst of the Middle East, based in Ottawa.
Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to
spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of further
conflict in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan and further militarization of
foreign policy in North America. Please indicate the source and
copyright note.
Notes
1 Zalmay Khalilzhad is the Afghan-born U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and
both a member of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century); he
also attended the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and helped
created sectarian tensions and division between Muslims, the Druze,
and Christians during the Lebanese Civil War. Zalmay Khalilzhad was
also one of the middle men between militias who killed Palestinian
civilians in Lebanon and the Israeli government.
2 Professor John F. Richards; Opium and the British Indian Empire:
The Royal Commission of 1895 Lecture, the University of Cambridge,
United Kingdom, May 23 2001
http://www.drugpoli <http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/opium_india.cfm>
cy.org/library/opium_india.cfm
http://fds.duke. <http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/history/faculty/richards>
edu/db/aas/history/faculty/richards
3 Professor Peter Ward Fay; The Opium War, 1840-1843, Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
4 Ibid
5 Ibid
6 Thomas Roy; China: The Awakening Giant, Chapter 2: Opening to the
West, pages 15-28, Toronto, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1981
Note: Pages 27-28 have a detailed and reader friendly directory of
suggested readings, research material, and sources in regards to the
Opium Wars and the British involvement in the narcotics (opium)
industry in regards to the exploitation of China.
7 UNODC Statement on The Opium Economy in Afghanistan
8 Professor Michel Chossudovsky America's "War on Terrorism," Chapter
2: Who is Osama bin Laden?, pages 26-27, Global Research, Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG), Pincourt (Québec), 2005
9 Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Who benefits from the Afghan Opium
Trade?, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), September 21, 2006
http://www.globalre <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?>
search.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060921&articleId=3294
10 The Economic Impact of the Illicit Drug Industry, Transnational
Institute (TNI)
http://www.tni. <http://www.tni.org/crime-docs/impact.pdf>
org/crime-docs/impact.pdf
11 Professor Asad Ismi, Drugs and Corruption in North and South
America
12 Ibid
13 Ibid
14 Rahul Bedi, Pakistan's military is country's largest business
conglomerate, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), October 12, 2006
15 Professor Asad Ismi, A U.S.-financed Military Dictatorship:
Pakistan has Long, Bloody History as the Terrorist Arm of U.S., CCPA
Monitor, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), June 2002
16 Eric Margolis, Afghanistan: Time for Truth, September 18, 2006
http://www.ericmarg
<http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/09/afghanistan_tim.php>
olis.com/archives/2006/09/afghanistan_tim.php
17 Military wants to turn soldiers into 'journalists' to win minds
overseas, Brandon Sun, September 21, 2006
http://www.brandons <http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=29952>
un.com/story.php?story_id=29952
Bergen, Bob; Military Censorship Hiding in Plain Sight, The Hamilton
Spectator, October 13, 2006
18 The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew
Brezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15-21 Issue, 1998, page
76.Also analyzed in Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on
Terrorism", op cit.
19 Jackie Dent, Is it time to negotiate with the Taliban?, Cable News
Network (CNN), October 5, 2006
http://edition.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/05/taliban.talks>
cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/05/taliban.talks
Include Taliban in government, says U.S. senator, The Associated
Press, October 3, 2006
Featured by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),
http://www.cbc.
<http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/10/03/taliban-frist.html>
ca/world/story/2006/10/03/taliban-frist.html
20 Musharraf's Waziristan deal a sell off to the Taliban, India
Defence, October 14, 2006
http://www.india- <http://www.india-defence.com/reports/2607>
defence.com/reports/2607
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