Kal Korff

USA Supported Opium, Heroin Production in Afghanistan Before Being Against It

by Kal K. Korff
Internationally Syndicated Copyright 2012 by Kal K. Korff - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

One of the greatest myths still perpetuated by the mainstream media is that the United States of America has always led the campaign to ght against opium and heroin production in Afghanistan. Today, some 90% of the worlds opium is grown in Afghanistan, it has long been the beleaguered countrys main cash crop. Heroin comes from opium. These two illegal drugs are not only shipped to the west as far as Great Britain and the United States, but they also make it onto the streets of Pakistan and of course India. India, like many countries, has a widespread drug problem. Closing down Afghanistans opium production would be a huge blow to the worlds supply, it would automatically improve the situation in India. Although the United States has for the past several years given millions of dollars in aid to Karzais government to encourage farmers to grow other crops, predictably this effort has failed. The reason is simple: money. If a farmer can make hundreds of times more cash selling opium plants to Afghan warlords or members of various maa cartels versus growing corn or wheat, theyre going to do it. Some farmers are also threatened that if they dont grow opium plants, their elds will be burned. While Americas professed crusade to stamp out Afghanistans opium production sounds noble at rst glance, as usual theres more than meets the eye to this issue. An inconvenient truth about the USAs history concerning opium and heroin production and drug trafcking in Afghanistan is that it was directly involved in it, the CIA in fact ofcially supported its sale and distribution.

This dirty secret of Americas support for illegal opium and heroin manufacturing and trafcking from Afghanistan began in earnest during the Reagan administration when the CIA was run by William Casey. In February of 1982, then US Attorney General William French Smith, wrote a letter to the CIAs Director, Bill Casey, exempting the spy agency from being held criminally accountable or liable for drug trafcking. On March 2, Casey wrote a letter of thanks to Smith, claiming that this extracted exemption would help protect CIA sources and methods. Frenchs letter was crafted because a year earlier, President Ronald Reagan signed a Top Secret order allowing opium and heroin to be used as a weapon to help destabilize the Russian Army, which had invaded Afghanistan in late 1979. The CIAs hopes were that these easily available drugs would hook Soviet soldiers, causing an extra burden to the USSR and expediting their exit from the country. The CIAs point man in Pakistan who oversaw the manufacture of opium and heroin and then its distribution to the occupying Russian troops in Afghanistan was Lt. General Fazle Haq. Haq was a trusted comrade of then Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ulHaq, who ruled Pakistan with an iron st thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Among Zia ul-Haqs more infamous achievements was his establishing over 10,000 religious madrases (schools) which taught the foundamentalist form of Islam known as Wahhabism which radicalized countless Pakistani youths, brainwashing them to think that jihad is the only way and to help attack India and the Russians in Afghanistan, even the Americans and the west. Pakistans intelligence agency, the ISI, ran their CIA approved drug operations in and around the northwest tribal regions just on the other side of the Afghan border in Pakistan. Fazle Haq set up literally hundreds of laboratories, using CIA supplied trucks to ferry the illicit cargo back to Afghanistan where it was indeed consumed by thousands of Russian soldiers who became addicted. These drug operations became hugely protable. Billions of dollars were made, so much money in fact that the ISI itself set up a special secret division dedicated to handle all aspects of the opium heroin enterprise. The ISI also began to use this multi billion dollar windfall to fund its covert operations, including militant attacks against India in the region of Kashmir; operations which could be ofcially denied and not traced to any ofcial budget.

Copyright 2012 by Kal K. Korff - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this content may be reproduced in any form nor by any means without the express, written consent of Kal Korff. Fair use, does NOT apply. By reading this document, you willingly agree to be legally bound by its terms and conditions. Violators of this policy will have a felony DMCA Copyright infringement notice filed against them with law enforcement. First time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to a fine of $1,000,000, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both. This is a DMCA protected document, illegal copying and/or reproduction of its contents are tracked on the Internet and reported to law enforcement for felony prosecution.

By the mid 1980s, Pakistan and the CIAs ofcial involvement in the heroin and opium business was an open secret. This was due to a series of events which dovetailed each other. The same year that the CIAs Casey received his legal exemption from Attorney General Smith, Europes International Police (Interpol) had gured out what the nasty game was. European spy agencies not only picked up hard intelligence about what was taking place, but so did Interpol itself thanks to the subsequent explosion of large quantities of heroin and opium nding their way to European markets. Interpol quickly ngered Pakistans Haq as an international drug dealer, publicly identifying him as such in 1982. Interpol could not act against Haq however because he was protected by both the CIA and Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Bush himself was a former head of the CIA under president Gerald Ford. The CIA-Pakistani ISI heroin opium drug enterprise became so brazen, both the CIA and the Pakistani government, along with various Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Haq himself, all opened accounts in the now defunct Bank of Credit Commerce International (BCCI) which had been set up in Pakistan and at its peak was the seventh largest bank in the world. BCCI was exposed as being the worlds sleaziest bank by Time magazine in 1991. For years it operated untouched, with everyone from the US Justice Department to the CIA refusing to cooperate with investigators worldwide to shut it down for its illegal money laundering. Everyone from George H.W. Bush himself to Pakistans Dr. A.Q. Khan (the father of Pakistans nuclear bomb) to even terrorists such as Abu Nidal and Osama bin Laden all used the bank. It was created in part with CIA money to not only spy on nefarious criminals and terrorists, but also to be used as a money network to move funds around to nance top secret operations without oversight or transparency. BCCI was eventually closed down during the rst years of the Clinton presidency, it was no longer useful to its masters and attracted too much of the wrong kind of attention. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 then Secretary Donald Rumsfeld partnered with Afghan drug lords to help oust the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Rumsfeld issued orders to American soldiers that opium drug labs were not to be touched. As long as the drug lords were useful, the pentagon didnt care about their line of business.

Copyright 2012 by Kal K. Korff - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this content may be reproduced in any form nor by any means without the express, written consent of Kal Korff. Fair use, does NOT apply. By reading this document, you willingly agree to be legally bound by its terms and conditions. Violators of this policy will have a felony DMCA Copyright infringement notice filed against them with law enforcement. First time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to a fine of $1,000,000, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both. This is a DMCA protected document, illegal copying and/or reproduction of its contents are tracked on the Internet and reported to law enforcement for felony prosecution.

While the USA boasts of its much hyped War On Drugs, the truth is much more sinister. As the Iran-Contra scandal also proved, prots from sales of everything from illegal weapons shipments to even cocaine were tolerated by the CIA, in fact even championed by the agency as long as it served Americas interests at that time. So-called morality didnt matter results did. 1.0v1 April 10, 2012 Kal K. Korff is an officially accredited internationally known author, columnist and investigative journalist.

Copyright 2012 by Kal K. Korff - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this content may be reproduced in any form nor by any means without the express, written consent of Kal Korff. Fair use, does NOT apply. By reading this document, you willingly agree to be legally bound by its terms and conditions. Violators of this policy will have a felony DMCA Copyright infringement notice filed against them with law enforcement. First time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to a fine of $1,000,000, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both. This is a DMCA protected document, illegal copying and/or reproduction of its contents are tracked on the Internet and reported to law enforcement for felony prosecution.