Karzai Brother: Drug Lord, CIA Darling?

(CBS)  Nothing captures the tangled American strategy in Afghanistan better than the person of Ahmed Wali Karzai - brother of President Hamid Karzai and poster boy for the corruption U.S. officials say riddles the Afghan government.

"I personally have been shown Western intelligence reports that would appear to indicate that he is indeed deeply involved in drugs," said Gretchen Peters, the author of a book on the Afghan drug trade. "He is the one that will make sure the customs and border police don't search the trucks that are full of drugs."

Special Report: Afghanistan

Now the New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai is also on the CIA payroll.

In other words, the U.S. is reportedly bankrolling a man suspected of being a major player in the corruption that handcuffs American troops in their fight against the Taliban.

Read more in CBSNews.com's WorldWatch Blog

"What you hear from Western intelligence officials is that he helps them get information about the whereabouts of Taliban officials," Peters said, and "about terrorist attacks that are going to take place against U.S. troops there."

He is also said to have provided the CIA this compound in Kandahar. For his part, Ahmed Wali Karzai denies any ties to the drug trade or the CIA.

But the U.S. military wants nothing to do with him. One senior officer said, "He's one of the worst things we've got going in Kandahar."

[newbie1111]

so, let me get this straight. The CIA is only supposed to deal with good, morally upstanding people???!!! What planet are we living on? The world is a grey place, filled with people who do good things, terrible things, and people who are, well...people...meaning they are capable of both "good" and "evil" (to put it simplistically). The CIA certainly is not perfect, it has had many public failures, and many questionable leaders. However, it is, for the most part staffed by intensely patriotic, morally upstanding, highly intelligent REALISTS. People, who understand that in order to get things done in a crazy world, we have to do things that we might prefer not to do. For all it's failures, god only knows how many times the CIA has saved the lives of countless Americans, and citizens of other countries as well. That is a fact. There are tonnes of conspiracy theories regarding the CIA, most of them are, absolutely false. As an agency, they get blamed for a lot. It's a thankless job, they are heroes for the most part. I wish CBS news and other sources would refrain from running such ignorant stories, which fail to deliver all the facts, while nurturing wild conspiracy theorists who seem to be content with not searching out real hard truth, and concrete facts.

[berlinfoto-2009]

Hey newbie111:
In the last few years I have done lots of reading, a small part of this was reading about the CIA.
"Blowback" by, Christopher Simpson, "Legacy of Ashes", by Tim Weiner, "The Secret Team" by L. Fletcher Prouty, "The C.I.A. Doctors by Colin A. Ross M.D., "The World as Laboratory", by Rebecca Lemov, "Overthrow", by Stephen Kinzer. When you read a few of these books, and start recognizing the names of people who had truly had a negative effect on your life, and when you started meeting these people when you were just a child. Then and only then do you have a true picture of the C.I.A. Also scattered in my life are those who admitted in one way or another that they in fact C.I.A.
I have read where there is probably no family in the United States that is not affected by just the C.I.A.'s unwitting testing LSD. I personally know o,f the murder of two individuals involved with unwitting LSD testing as late as 1983.
Wake up there is something seriously wrong with these people, they is so much scum in the C.I.A.
Every time I have had my life on truly the right track, these people have come along and caused me tremendous difficulty, and I was a child when this started. They have the power to destroy the lives of
American Citizens, and they do in fact do this in a Truly Willy Nilly fashion.
They destroyed my chances at getting a good education, saying that they were offering me a chance at a good education, what they had planed for me simply was not what I wanted, and they would not leave me alone so that I could get the education that I wanted. What happened to freedom to choose the life you want to live, I was harming no one. Covert Destruction of a persons life.
Where there is smoke there is fire.

[berlinfoto-2009]

In reading the book, "KILLING HOPE", one reads about all of the dirty tricks the CIA has used on foreign governments and nations, influencing elections, and controlling the news media.
In the election in the United States, in year 2000, a angry mob comprised of Cuban-American's, and Oklahoman's, stopped the recount, which put the outcome of the election into the hands of a mainly Republican appointed Supreme Court.
In the election of 2004, in the Desert Southwest, entire ballot boxes were found in the dumpsters near the polling places that were in strong democratic precincts. There was unprecedented voter fraud in the State of Ohio.
Is it possible that these dirty tricks that occurred in the elections of 2000, and 2004, are the work of the same organization that is guilty of these type of dirty tricks overseas?
The Book "KILLING HOPE", was written by William Blum, and I am not quoting it here.

[bajajohn1]

If Cheney gave order to the CIA to lie to congress, then the Attorney General needs to go before a grand jury to seek an indictment. Lying to Congress is a felony crime and old Cheney is not above the law.

[babooph]

Drugs are kept illegal & arrests are standard for the "Wrong" trafficers-keeping massive profits for the right ones-trash worth only pennies turns into millions-FOR SOME....

[lilbearlobo]

And somehow this is supposed to be news? The CIA has been known to install dictators, assasinate democratically elected leaders, train "secret police" death squads and associate, aid and abet somekof the worst of the worst of mankind since it started. They are also reknowned for some of the goofiest plots and major fiascos in American history. If you want to take a look at a fine example of their efficiency, take a look at the twin towers. Oh, wait a minute...you can't. Their world wide support of oppressive regimes is a large part of the reason we are so universally loved in the world today in Saudi, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan,Phillipines,etc.,etc., etc.

[Biggest_Rick]

LOL, it is amazing the imagination of liberals. So much claimed to be true with so little proof beyond the ravings of other liberals. The reality is that the CIA is an Apolitical group of people who serve the country often times with huge limits placed upon them by politicans in trying to get intelligence in a very dangerous world. Some of these posts are just plain laughable.

[Astrodew]

I'm actually wonderstruck to see this story being carried, considering the numerous other scandals that have bubbled under the surface of mainstream attention these last few years. It's impossible to draw the line between "well informed" and "conspiracy theorist" anymore.
The story itself is no surprise though, and I am inclined to think that OregonJames is correct in his suspicions. Consider the testimony given by Sibel Edmonds this summer, which no mainstream outlet has covered:
There were bin Ladens, with the help of Pakistanis or Saudis, under our management. Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent, bringing people from East Turkestan into Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan to Azerbaijan, from Azerbaijan some of them were being channeled to Chechnya, some of them were being channeled to Bosnia. From Turkey, they were putting ... Read Moreall these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.

GIRALDI: Was the U.S. government aware of this circular deal?

EDMONDS: 100 percent. A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.