As Heroin Florishes [in Afghanistan], So Could Terrorism

Bush has diverted so many resources away from Afghanistan for his useless occupation of Iraq that heroin traffic and lawlessness is flourishing in Afghanistan - and funding Al Queada.

From the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, May 10, 2004:

www.phillynews.com

Excerpt:

"About 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan - opium is the raw material of heroin - and the country's late-summer harvest will produce three-fourths of the world's heroin. That will mean further billions for growers, smugglers, corrupt officials and Afghan warlords.

It's also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to al-Qaeda and its Islamist brethren said to be regrouping in the mountains of Central Asia.

"Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for international terrorism now," Yuldashov said. "That's quite clear."

"The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said Col. Alexander Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with border guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons, ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism - it's a closed circle."...

"the DEA has only a minimal presence her... two agents to cover all of Afghanistan."

dg v

We didn't finish the project in Afghanistan. We didn't catch Osama, we didn't stop the opium flow, I'm not sure how strong the government in Kabul is. To me this proves that the war in Iraq is at least somewhat about oil. Why else do we turn our back on Afghanistan and go on the most illogical, poorly-thought out misadventure this country had ever embarked on?

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