Posted on 06/05/2014 4:10:20 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen
TAIBAD, Iran (AP) — In the face of Afghanistan’s unprecedented boom in opium production, neighboring Iran is trying to baton down its border to slow down smuggling, building moats, walls and other large-scale projects.
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Neighboring Afghanistan has all the makings of a narco-state and is the main source of drugs coming into Iran and headed to other markets in Europe and the United States.
Last year, 209,000 hectares (806 square miles) of poppies were planted across Afghanistan, up 36 percent over the year before. They produced an estimated 5,500 metric tons (6,062 tons) of opium, according to the United Nations drug agency. By comparison, only a little over 7,000 hectares (27 square miles) of poppy field were eradicated.
The 2014 harvest is expected to match or even exceed last year’s record. In coming years, opium will grab an even larger share of Afghanistan’s already troubled economy, as money from U.S. military contracts and aid work dries up. The U.N. estimates that some 200,000 families in Afghanistan are involved in opium production already and that the country has some 1 million addicts.
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“In 2013, we confiscated 573 tons of various kinds of narcotics from drug smugglers, showing a 14 percent increase compared to 2012,” Ali Reza Jazini, a senior Iranian counter-narcotics official, told foreign diplomats as they visited Iran’s border with Afghanistan.
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(Excerpt) Read more at postregister.com ...
Two words: Agent Orange.
I believe that’s the reason we’re still there, to protect the opium fields. The Taliban want to destroy them, can’t say I disagree with them at least on this one point.
Thing is, I wanted to destroy every field when the war started.
“I believe that’s the reason we’re still there, to protect the opium fields.”
Are you saying that it has nothing to do with spreading freedom and democracy?
Precisely what I’m saying.
What's the weather like in Iran today, let's take a look.
Frank Batten, who among other things, started the Weather Channel.
Prolly more cost effective and efficient setting up shop with the cartels south of us. The infrastructure already exists and no jihadis to deal with.
The question everyone should be asking is this. If we are supposedly fighting a “War on Drugs “; How is it that the country we have militarily occupied for 10+ years the largest exporter of opium???
I was not around when the Brits flooded China with Opium but it sure seems like someone is doing the same thing today to the USA
Another article, NYT from back in 2007:
“Poppy Fields Are Now a Front Line in Afghan War “
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“To fight a Taliban insurgency flush with drug money for recruits and weapons, the Bush administration recognizes that it must also combat the drug trafficking it had largely ignored for years. But plans to clear poppy fields and pursue major drug figures have been frustrated by corruption in the Afghan government, and derided by critics as belated half-measures or missteps not likely to have much impact.
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Poppy growing is endemic in the countryside, and Afghanistan now produces 92 percent of the world’s opium. But until recently, American officials acknowledge, fighting drugs was considered a distraction from fighting terrorists. “
The Tall-y-bahn are drug lords as well. It’s obvious when they “crack down” it’s only a short-term temporary move to strengthen their drug business.
This has all the earmarks of US financial elites having their top minions be the top dogs in the drug business, being the overseers of the drug lords. Their minions within the US government provide all the documention, in excrutiating detail, for the case of “we tried, but it just can’t be eradicated”.
This provides a lot of money for “dark projects”, feeding cash as needed where needed to “get things done”. It nicely keeps the sheeple all over the world set up with their heroin habit, making them easy to manipulate and helpful in causing corruption, moral decay, etc.
The US “eradication campaign” in Afghanistan eradicated 7,000 of 209,000 acres ? That’s a little over 3%.
The policy continues. The last three years poppy production has steadily grown.
There’s no danger of our US government being forced to stop operating their drug business, if you see how the media, education, political, societal, etc., pieces fit together.
All over the world; Asia, Europe, Russia.
The financial elites want this.
FDR’s grandfather Warren Delano made his fortune in the opium business.
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