What Happened to Al Qaeda?

What happened to our fight with Al Qaeda? Why are we driving the Taliban out of Marja?

I decided to look into the opium trade in Helmand Province a little, and it focused my attention on the fact that we are not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. As I sometimes say, anywhere you find the US in an altercation, you will also find the CIA and drugs.

In addition to the reported corruption of our puppet president in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, we have evidence that his brother is on the CIA payroll.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

[...]

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

[...]

Now, with more American lives on the line, the relationship with Mr. Karzai is setting off anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials in the Obama administration. They say that Mr. Karzai’s suspected role in the drug trade, as well as what they describe as the mafialike way that he lords over southern Afghanistan, makes him a malevolent force.

[...]

Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.

[...]

Counternarcotics officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over the unwillingness of senior policy makers in Washington to take action against Mr. Karzai — or even begin a serious investigation of the allegations against him.

[...]

Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.

  NYT

This Newsweek report from 2002 provides some background. It says that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in 2000 prohibited growing of opium poppy but did nothing to enforce it, so that in effect they managed to have US monetary support while still capitalizing on opium profits. Then, when the US installed Hamid Karzai post 9/11, things became uncertain for the poppy growers.

Haji Abdul Ali, a 25-year veteran of the opium trade with a large black beard and faint traces of kohl around his eyes, talked about his profession. "Since war started in Afghanistan, there's no other business for us," he said as our guards shouted and pushed the crowd back. "If the new government presented us with an alternative line of work then we wouldn't need to do this."

Ali, who claimed to be the sole breadwinner for an extended family of 22, said he wasn't worried about Karzai's recent ban. He hadn't seen any law enforcement passing through the bazaar and didn't expect to see any.

[...]

In Helmand, the big money from the opium trade has affected the politics of the region. Whoever controls this province controls the drug source, several people in Kandahar told me. Control of Helmand and neighboring Nimruz province, which is used as a transit point to Iran, allows complete control of the trade and the heavy taxes levied on drug convoys, as well.

[...]

The incentives for farmers to switch crops is practically nonexistent. One kilo of wheat fetches five cents, one kilo of opium brings in nearly $450.

[...]

Qodratullah, a farmhand outside of Lashkar Gah, explained the temptation to plant poppies as I bent down to look at his recent crop. "If you look at the leaves carefully, you'll see the dollar signs on them," he says.

Perhaps the reason that we can't leave Afghanistan, why McChrystal, and more pointedly, ambassador Eikenberry, did about-faces on their prognoses for "winning" the war when the plan to take Marja was ginned up, has more to do with the poppies than the Taliban. After all, the Taliban is not Al Qaeda.

This Newsweek report comes from last summer, July 2009:

After spending years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to eradicate the fields of poppies that produce opium in Afghanistan, the United States suddenly announced in June that, in the words of special Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke, "eradication is a waste of money." Instead, NATO and Afghan forces are trying to focus on the nexus between the opium trade and Taliban financing.

How nicely our war on terror and Al Qaeda dovetails with our faux war on drugs.

In a series of interviews with NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey, [Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime] talked about the surprising drug story behind the war story in Afghanistan.

[...]

"Since 2005 the Afghans have cultivated almost twice world demand. The bottom should have fallen out of the opium market. It has not. And we have been wondering what happened to the opium, where it is. Now, in a number of military operations in the southern provinces, NATO troops have found huge amounts, which is evidence that the Taliban have been sitting on huge stockpiles.

[...]

"And what the recent NATO military operations are showing us is that the Taliban are much closer to running the business than we thought. NATO has been seizing precursors, seeds, opium, laboratory equipment, arms, pickup trucks—all sorts of insurgent equipment in drug markets and warehouses that have been attacked.

[...]

"Worldwide retail—what's sold on the streets of Naples or Marseilles or London—was about $52 billion [last year]."

And, get this….

"The Iranians have invested a significant amount of money and blood. They have a lot of vulnerability because of their proximity to Afghanistan. They lost 3,200 border guards and policemen in the fight over the past five years. And they have put up an infrastructure along the border that consists of hundreds of kilometers of ditches. The effort is definitely gigantic, and they are very effective as a police force."

The Iranians are battling the drug trade.

Now, let's go back to the CIA:

In a country flooded with narcotics traffickers and corrupt government officials, one of Afghanistan’s few remaining ‘clean’ governors, Mohammed Daud [who oversaw Helmand Province], has been removed from his position, and many are blaming the drug mafia and the CIA for his abrupt dismissal.

[...]

It would appear U.S. officials, particularly from the Central Intelligence Agency, were influencing […] President Hamid Karzai's decision to dismiss Mohammed Daud as governor".

[...]

According to a recent report issued by the United Nations and the World Bank, the U.S.-installed government has established a “complex pyramid of protection and patronage, effectively providing state protection to criminal trafficking activities.”

  American Monitor 12/2006

The UK Guardian, 2007:

Favourable weather, Taliban insurgents and corrupt government officials all contributed to this year's record poppy haul, which has edged Afghanistan perilously close to becoming a full narco-state.

[...]

Western countries, led by the US, have spent several billion pounds trying to eradicate the trade since 2001. But it has only grown stronger.

[...]

The drug barons run little risk of being caught.

[...]

"There will be an overlap between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency targets. We want people who are big in the insurgency and drugs to realise they don't enjoy impunity," said the British official.

[...]

No major smuggler has been arrested in Afghanistan since 2001.

I wonder why that is. I'm certain that I wouldn't be too far into tinfoil hat territory to suggest that the struggle for control over the Helmand Province is a struggle between Taliban "insurgents" attempting to finance their efforts to drive infidel invaders from their country and the CIA attempting to finance their black ops, both using the profits from opium sales.

UK Times Online, May 2009:

US forces have signalled a radical shift in their strategy in Afghanistan, vowing to cut the Taleban’s main source of income by stamping out the production of opium.

[...]

Army commanders argued that if they were to secure the support of an ambivalent population, the troops had to avoid becoming embroiled in fighting a narcotics trade that employed hundreds of thousands of local people.

[...]

A narco-insurgency in which the opium economy of southern Afghanistan fused with the Taleban was seen as a scenario to be avoided at all costs when British troops were deployed to Helmand in early 2006.

Well, oops.

The focus for the 20,000 US troops deploying into the south will be the three key drug-producing provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul. Their orders are to stop the flow of drugs money to the Taleban — estimated at $300 million (£202 million) a year from taxing and protecting the opium crop.

[...]

Western strategy against the opium scourge has been the subject of intense debate in Nato.

[...]

In January that debate was briefly exposed in a series of e-mails leaked to the German magazine Der Spiegel between General John Craddock, the Nato Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and General David McKiernan, the Nato commander in Afghanistan.

This Newsmax article talks about George Bush's decision not to destroy the poppy crops in 2002:

After spending millions of dollars on a U.S. advertising campaign that linked illegal drug sales to terrorism, the Bush administration has opted not to destroy Afghanistan's opium production over fears that such an act may destabilize Pakistan.

[...]

Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed.

The threat to overthrow Musharraf is motivated in part by Islamic radical groups linked to the Pakistani intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The radical groups reportedly obtain their primary funding through opium production and trade.

[...]

The CIA decision not to stop the Afghan opium production has been greeted silently by U.S. allies.

[...]

However, one foreign intelligence official was quick to point out that the CIA has a history of supporting international drug trafficking.

"The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences – the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA. The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years, so I guess they just want to carry on their favorite business," noted an allied intelligence official who works closely with U.S. law enforcement.

[...]

According to intelligence sources, a simple grant of $200 a year, no more than $20 million in total, sent to each poorly paid Afghan farmer could stop all opium production. The U.S. war in Afghanistan has already consumed an estimated $40 billion.

But that money would be on the books, and therefore unavailable for covert operations.

Interestingly, there is talk now about paying the Taliban to stop fighting. Perhaps the CIA and the Taliban could strike a deal to share in opium profits. Of course, they'd have to cut in Halliburton.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.