No question it’s unwinnable. Problem is they have poppy fields that when smuggled into America are taking a huge toll on our youth.We see what the CIA is up to is that the anwer?
Webb says, large military transport planes, like C-130s are used to transfer raw opium from Afghanistan to Pakistan, where they are refined into opioid medications, which are then contracted-out by mobbed-up doctors, to places like the VA (US Department of Veterans Affairs), where these generic drugs (usually watered-down to half- or quarter-strength) are distributed from Belgium.
He says information about all of the above can be found in the Congressional Blackberry phone network.
He describes these activities as, ‘Just Mena [Arkansas] Airport, on a global scale, just longer distances…It’s very simple: drugs go one way, arms go the other way….’ Half of the cargo gets left in Belgium and the rest comes to the US. In the past, he’s mentioned Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska, as well as an airport in Rockford, Illinois, where drugs were smuggled in shipments of mangoes and Basmati rice. Except that instead of the $1 million per day worth of cocaine being brought in at Mena, Webb claims, in an another one of his blizzard of micro-posts, that Offut AFB receives $1 billion per day (!) in opioids.”
WASHINGTON —
The world's No. 1 opium-producing country, Afghanistan, is braced for an exploding poppy harvest this year, as farmers are cultivating the illicit crop in areas where it has never grown before.
“Unfortunately, the narcotics production is on the rise this year,” Javed Qaem, Afghan deputy counternarcotics minister, told international donors in Kabul Tuesday. “We are concerned that narcotics would increase this year, including in areas and provinces where previously we had zero opium production.”
A new United Nations survey said Friday the total area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 10 percent, from 183,000 to 201,000 hectares, compared to the previous year, leading to a significant rise in the production of illicit opium. The illicit drug is fueling insecurity, violence and insurgency among other problems to discourage private and public investment in Afghanistan, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its survey report.
Qaem’s comments come amid growing international concern that the Taliban, who are fighting Afghan government troops in rural areas of the country, are fueling the poppy trade by engaging in trafficking and skimming hundreds of millions dollars in profit to fuel their militancy.
Taliban insurgents, according to U.S. officials, net 60 percent of their war chest from narcotics.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March, 16, 2017, after being sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March, 16, 2017, after being sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence.
Top producer of opium
Afghanistan is thought to produce an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin. As poppy cultivation spikes, U.S. intelligence officials warn that the war-torn country is likely to see more armed violence this year.
“The intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018, even with a modest increase in [the] military assistance by the United States and its partners,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a Senate hearing last week.
RG, as you are well aware they had poppy fields way before we ever went in there. Those cave dwellers aren’t worth one more American life. And being the coarse soul I am, there isn’t much pity in me for all those who decide life is good on drugs.