Inside The Afghan Poppy Wars
Is The U.S.-Led War On Drugs In Afghanistan Undermining The War On Terror?
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U.S. Losing Afghan Drug War
The U.S. is fighting a losing battle against the heroin trade in Afghanistan, which largely benefits the Taliban. And as Armen Keteyian reports, terrorists aren't this drug war's only beneficiaries.
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Eye To Eye: Afghan Drug War
"Only On The Web": Former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles speaks with CBS News about the problems faced by the U.S. as they try to curb Afghanistan's Taliban-backed heroin trade.
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A View From The Fields
"Only On The Web": Military contractor Eric Sherepita explains how Afghanistan's lucrative heroin trade helps finance global terrorism and why U.S. efforts to dismantle it have been ineffective.
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U.N. figures show 93 percent of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan's poppy fields. (CBS)
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Despite pouring more than a billion in taxpayer dollars into getting rid of Afghanistan's poppies, production is up 300 percent. (CBS)
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Erik Sherepita spent a year supervising a small army of private contractors and hundreds of Afghans cutting down fields of poppies all over Afghanistan. (CBS)
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It's been called the world's deadliest flower.
"Because that flower turns into heroin, which turns into money," said Eric Sherepita. "That money turns into weapons used against us."
Sherepita spent a year supervising a small army of private contractors and hundreds of Afghans cutting down fields of poppies all over the country - at a cost of more than $6,800 per acre.
But despite their best efforts and more than a billion in taxpayer dollars poured into the war on drugs on all fronts since 2004 - poppy production is up 300 percent in the last six years. It now totals more than 470,000 acres.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles, who authored the poppy program, now tells CBS News it missed because it never went on the offensive.
"What we are looking at in Afghanistan is a colossal missed opportunity," Charles said.
"My biggest fear was that we would end up where we are today: with record harvests and just 10 percent of the crop eradicated; one-third of what experts say is needed to make a difference," Charles said.
And Charles is hardly alone. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress: "I think it's patently obvious we have not been successful in the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan."
In the end, it appears the only big winners are private military contractors like DynCorp -- paid over $200 million to destroy these fields. But even contractor Sherepita, who believes in the program, sees the anger it feeds.
"Sometimes you'd meet with the locals. They'd be, you know, kind of furious. You know you're takin' money and food out of their mouths," Sherepita said.
"I've talked to elderly people who have said they might as well have just run over me with the tractor, because how am I going to feed my family?" said Norine MacDonald.
For the last three years, MacDonald has lived among Southern Afghans and seen the U.S. poppy policy backfire, she says, from the ground up. Watching farmers who had their fields wiped out switch their sympathies to the Taliban.
"The U.S.-led war on drugs in Southern Afghanistan is undermining the war on terror. It's absolutely conclusive," MacDonald said.
MacDonald's European-based advocacy group - the Senlis Council - proposed an alternative: A pilot project where farmers grow poppies legally, to produce morphine for medical use.
While there's growing support abroad for her idea - it met a stone wall at the State Department.
CBS News wanted to talk to the State Department official in charge of the poppy program, Ambassador Thomas Schweich, but he canceled a scheduled interview at the last minute. The government said no one else could do it because no one else feels comfortable talking about the subject.
Little wonder. Despite all the money spent trying to eliminate their cash crop, U.S. military analysts say the Taliban is growing in strength.
EDITOR’S NOTE: CBS News incorrectly reported that Thomas Schweich was at the State Department when this story originally aired on June 25, 2008. Schweich left his job five days earlier.
While still serving at the State Department as the Coordinator for Counter Narcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan, Ambassador Schweich cancelled a scheduled interview with CBS News. Earlier, he had offered to do an interview once he left the Bush Administration. However, CBS News wanted an interview with a State Department official accountable for the program and declined Schweich's offer.
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See all 77 CommentsLeave it to CBS Newz to frame this story exactly backwards.
Re: "Is The U.S.-Led War On Drugs In Afghanistan Undermining The War On Terror?"
The imbecilic "War on Terror" against Afghanistan has resulted in opium production there to go from negligable, under Taliban rule, to some 93% of the total global supply.
This monumental "own-goal" in the "War on Drugs" shows once and for all that this effort is a complete farce, and is totally ineffective/counterproductive.
Besides that though, you can be sue that Uncle Sam is getting his cut, and using the proceeds to help fund al-CIA''duh operations.
Last year was the deadliest year yet in Afghanistan, ond casualties are already up another 50% this year.
Are we winning?
If so, what?
Following the events of 9/11/01, Taliban officials offered to hand over CIA asset, Osama bin Laden, to face charges. Their only condition was that U.S. officials present evidence of Osama''s involvement in these attacks. The Bush regime declined, because they had no such evidence, and because they intended to attack the people of Afghanistan regardless of whether or not they were involved in the 9/11 events.
What the Bush regime wanted, was to resume opium production (which was negligible under the Taliban), and to pave the way for the construction of a pipeline through Afghanistan, so that they could extract the hydrocarbon resources from the region.
Knowing that massive casualties in Afghanistan would sap U.S. public support for the invasion, the Bush regime chose to use the warlords of the region as proxy fighters. Large rewards offered by the U.S. led to innocent people being handed over to be tortured by U.S. agents in Afghanistan, Guantanimo Bay, and elsewhere.
These warlords/druglords now comprise the vast majority of officials in the subsequently installed parliament, Afghanistan is the center of global opium production, and former Unocal executive, Hamid Karzai, has been installed as the puppet ruler of the country.
We have no legitimate business in Afghanistan.
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It ain''t the US led war on drugs that''s undermining anything. It''s the resources sucked into the US led war to turn Iraq into an oil colony that''s undermining everything!!
Re: "...it appears the only big winners are private military contractors like DynCorp -- paid over $200 million to destroy these fields."
Certainly DynCorp is getting their cut.
Child *** slave trafficing and war profitteering is the DynCorp way.
This organization should be disbanded and their assets liquidated to help pay reparations to their many plunder victims.
Re: "If we have no legitimate business in Afghanistan it is because Bin Laden is in Pakistan."
Posted by OneWorldUSA
Nope. Osama is most likely long dead, and is irrelevant since there is no credible evidence suggesting that he was involved in the 9/11/01 attacks.
The plan to attack and invade Afghanistan was in the works well ahead of the attacks of 9/11/01. In fact, the final invasion plan was on George''s desk, 2 days prior to these attacks.
Many of us will recall that the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan even offered to capture Osama bin Laden and turn him over for trial, if the Western leaders could provide evidence of his involvement in the 9/11/01 attacks.
The Bush regime did not provide this evidence, because they did not have any, and because they were already determined to wage a war of aggression against Afghanistan no matter what, and to install a compliant puppet (see- Hamid Karzai).
We have no legitimate business in Afghanistan, and we should apologize, withdraw, and figure out a way to begin reparations payments to the people of that country.
Our focus must be to bring Bush regime officials and accomplices before a war crimes tribunal.
So how many people die from Alcohol, which the US government makes billions of dollars from? How many die from Opium and Hasheesh?
And which country has the government that makes more money from drug dealing?
I don''t believe that Osama, or any sophisticated foreign "TERRA" network (other than maybe the Pakistani ISI and the Israeli Mossad) had anything to do with the events of 9/11/01, so there is no valid justification for us being there, in my opinion.
We invaded Afghanistan to:
A. Further destabilize that country
B. Revive global opium production (which was negligible under Taliban rule)
C. Establish a military launch point for a campaign of aggression in the region (see Iraq)
D. Provide an overseas location to develop U.S. torture programs and secret prisons
E. Install a U.S. corporate-friendly puppet-ruler to plunder the resources of the region (see former Unocal executive and "Mayor of Kabul", Hamid Karzai)
F. Create a state of never-ending and unwinnable "war", for profit
Based on these criteria, much of the "Mission" has been "Accomplished".
Best of luck to the people of Afghanistan to unaccomplish it.
The $200 Million it would cost to buy the poppys would be 1/10 the cost of the war on drugs once the crop reaches the USA.
It will never happen while Bush and his corporate raiders (of thbe US Treasury) are sucking our tax money.
Re: "CBS News wanted to talk to the State Department official in charge of the poppy program, Ambassador Thomas Schweich. But he canceled a scheduled interview with CBS News at the last minute. And the agency said no one else could do it because no one else feels comfortable talking about the subject."
Sounds like a bunch of useless chickensit losers.
Probably too lit up on Afghan smack.
Clearly a waste of precious tax revenue.
They want a given result, but through sheer ignorance and ineptitude, end up with just the opposite.
hahaha
good one,,,
many countries have the DEATH PENALTY for those caught with drugs,,,
Midnight Express (1978)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077928/
Story of a man who is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison. Inspired from and dramatized upon a true event.
Unless there is some replacement for this lucrative business, they should regulate and tax it into prosperity. After all, do they not want autonomy or do they want forever to have the US as a protectorate?
It after all is the economy (stupid).
You''d think Republicans, of all people, would understand the ''invisible hand''. Or, is that just cr*p they sell the rest of us to keep us in our place?
Midnight Express (1978)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077928/
Story of a man who is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison. Inspired from and dramatized upon a true event.
hahaha
good one,,,
How many years did it take him to grasp al Qaeda took refuge in Afghanistan, not Iraq?
And how long before Bush understood he dropped the ball when given the chance to kill or capture bin Laden at least three times?
no hablo inglis, cabeza de la mierda
su madre y su padre,,,
ummmmmm nancy,,, it is the DEMONIC-RAT DOCTRINE,,,
On February 16, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." On February 14, 1945, while returning from the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal, the first time a U.S. president had visited the Persian Gulf region.
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on 23 January 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region. The doctrine was a response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and was intended to deter the Soviet Union%u2014the Cold War adversary of the United States%u2014from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf. After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil," Carter proclaimed:
Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. (full speech)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine
There''s no way the next president can ''win'' the task set before him by the republicans. The best he can hope to do is ''carry water'' to soften the blow they''ve beset upon an entire generation of Americans.
McCain wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and make the Iraq war permanent. That says he wants to put the final screws into the coffin of the next generation of Americans.
But, they are ALREADY IN the coffin. Make no mistake about that. This has been a generational clvsterfvck of decadal proportions.
Now, the regions outside Kabul are under the control of warlords, many of whom benefit from the trade. Last year''s production was nine times higher than during the final year of Taliban rule.
Without a national police force or army, President Hamid Karzai''s interim government cannot enforce its poppy ban, leaving drug-eradication workers exposed to retaliation. In June, seven of them were mobbed and killed by enraged poppy farmers in Oruzgan province, 250 miles southwest of Kabul, where authorities were making a major effort to reduce the poppy crops."
Ironic that the Taliban could do it, but Karzai cannot.
Is this where poppy seeds for our bagels come from? If so, we need to ban poppy seeds, in fact, perhaps we should ban them altogether anyway no matter where they come from.
or eliminate bagels,,,
hahaha CHANGE,,, hahaha
rightttttt,,, do you think you will like his staff of the NEW BLACK ANTHER PARTY and the NATION OF TERRORISLAM in his cabinet,,, like he has them in his campaign staff NOW,,,
poor america,,, if hussein becomes president,,,
even europe is concerned about a hussein presidency,,,
if europe is concerned,,, it must be bad,,,
terrorislami you are an idiot...and probably a Republican.
interesting article.
I always thought it WAS the Taliban growing these crops to make money for their terror cause.
I agree with Demongirl. Why can''t the farmers grow other crops. Of course, they probably make tons more money for a bushel of poppies versus a bushel of wheat.
Check out the big brain on frootloop%u2026 lol
Jules: Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?
Brett: No.
Jules: Tell him, Vincent.
Vincent: Royale with cheese.
Jules: Royale with cheese. Do you know why they call it a Royale with cheese?
Brett: Because of the metric system?
Jules: Check out the big brain on Brett. You one smart ************.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/quotes
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