NYT Writeup Of U.S. War On Afghanistan Ignores U.S. Atrocities
The New York Times has a 4,000 words long piece about the war on Afghanistan. It tries to explain why the Taliban won the war.
How the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity and Carnage
It is also a remarkable attempt to ignore the factual history:
[The Taliban] have outlasted a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war. And dozens of interviews with Taliban officials and fighters in three countries, as well as with Afghan and Western officials, illuminated the melding of old and new approaches and generations that helped them do it.After 2001, the Taliban reorganized as a decentralized network of fighters and low-level commanders empowered to recruit and find resources locally while the senior leadership remained sheltered in neighboring Pakistan.
That is simply wrong. Between the end of 2001 and 2007 there were no Taliban. The movement had dissolved.
The author later acknowledges that there were no Taliban activity throughout those years. But the narrative is again skewed:
Many Taliban commanders interviewed for this article said that in the initial months after the invasion, they could scarcely even dream of a day they might be able to fight off the U.S. military. But that changed once their leadership regrouped in safe havens provided by Pakistan’s military — even as the Pakistanis were receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid.From that safety, the Taliban planned a longer war of attrition against U.S. and NATO troops. Starting with more serious territorial assaults in 2007, the insurgents revived and refined an old blueprint the United States had funded against the Soviets in the same mountains and terrain — but now it was deployed against the American military.
Even before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan the Taliban had recognized that they lacked the capability to run a country. They had managed to make Afghanistan somewhat secure. The warlords who had fought each other after the Soviet draw down were suppressed and the streets were again safe. But there was no development, no real education or health system and no money to create them.
When the U.S. invaded the Taliban dispersed. On December 5 2001 Taliban leader Mullah Omar resigned and went into hiding within Afghanistan. For one day the Taliban defense minister Mullah Obaidullah became the new leader. From the The Secret Life of Mullah Omar by Bette Dam:
The next day, Mullah Obaidullah drove up north to Kandahar’s Shah Wali Kot district to meet with Karzai and his supporters. In what has become known as the “Shah Wali Kot Agreement”, Mullah Obaidullah and the Taliban agreed to lay down their arms and retire to their homes or join the government. The movement effectively disbanded itself. Karzai agreed, and in a media appearance the next day, he announced that while al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were the enemies of Afghanistan, the Taliban were sons of the soil and would effectively receive amnesty. For the moment, the war was over.
The Taliban fighters went back to their home villages and families. Most stayed in Afghanistan. Some of the leaders and elder members went back to the tribal regions of Pakistan where their families had been living as refugees since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
The Taliban did not plan a longer war of attrition - at least not between 2001 and 2006. The movement had simply ceased to exist.
The big question is then why it came back but the New York Times has little to say about that:
From the start, the insurgents seized on the corruption and abuses of the Afghan government put in place by the United States, and cast themselves as arbiters of justice and Afghan tradition — a powerful part of their continued appeal with many rural Afghans in particular. With the United States mostly distracted with the war in Iraq, the insurgency widened its ambitions and territory.
No, the 'corruption and abuses of the Afghan government' were not the reason the Taliban were reestablished. The abuses of the U.S. occupation recreated them. The publicly announced amnesty Karzai and Mullah Obaidullah had agreed upon, was ignored by the U.S. commanders and politicians.
The CIA captured random Afghans as 'Taliban' and brutally tortured them - some to death. U.S. Special Forces randomly raided private homes and bombed whole villages to rubble. The brutal warlords, which the Taliban had suppressed, were put back into power. When they wanted to grab a piece of land they told their U.S. handlers that the owner was a 'Taliban'. The U.S. troops would then removed that person one way or the other. The behavior of the occupiers was an affront to every Afghan.
By 2007 Mullah Omar and his helper Jabbar Omari were hiding in Siuray, a district around twenty miles southeast of Qalat. A large U.S. base was nearby. Bette Dam writes of the people's mood:
As the population turned against the government due to its corruption and American atrocities, they began to offer food and clothing to the house-hold for Jabbar Omari and his mysterious friend.
It was the absurd stupidity and brutality with which the U.S. occupied the country that gave Afghans the motive to again fight against an occupier or at least to support such a fight.
At the same time the Pakistani military had come to fear a permanent U.S. presence in its backyard. It connected the retired Taliban elders with its sponsors in the Gulf region and organized the logistics for a new insurgency. The Taliban movement was reestablished with new leadership but under the old name.
The old tribal command networks were reactivated and the ranks were filled with newly disgruntled Afghans. From that point on it was only a question of time until the U.S. would have to leave just like the Soviets and Brits had to do before them.
By December 2001 the war against the Taliban had ended. During the following five years the U.S. fought against an imaginary enemy that no longer existed. It was this war on the wider population that by 2007 created a new insurgency that adopted the old name.
A piece that claims to explain why the Taliban have won the war but ignores the crucial period between 2001 and 2007 misses the most important point that made the Taliban victory possible.
The will of the Afghan people to liberate their country from a foreign occupation.
Posted by b on May 26, 2020 at 17:16 UTC | Permalink
If 1% of the shooting money had been spent on the people of Afghanistan post 2001.
But no one was going to make money that way.
Posted by: Jpc | May 26 2020 17:47 utc | 2
Bombing civilians is recruiting more enemies. Also, in this mistaken adventure the US has been stupidly allied with and funding the neighboring country (Pakistan) which is supporting the people (Taliban) who are killing Americans.
General McChrystal's Report to President Obama, Aug 30, 2009:
'Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan. . .and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI [Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence ]. . . .Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India." . . .Simply put, Pakistan didn't want to be in an Indian sandwich with its mortal enemy on two sides.
President Obama was then in the process of more than tripling the US military strength in Afghanistan, sending 70,000 more troops to that graveyard of empires (UK, Russia). Three months later, December 1, 2009 at West Point, Obama gave a rah-rah speech to cadets including: . . ."Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 26 2020 18:03 utc | 3
There's an old weird rumor that some company was making money off of growing flowers in the country, and they didn't want their income to dry up. Don't know anything about this--support or refute?
Posted by: Imagine | May 26 2020 18:20 utc | 4
non of the usa wars on others soil makes sense to me... going on memory, the justification for the usa going into afganistan was osama bin laden... punish a whole country to catch some whack job that you probably set up to do the gig, even if he didn't do it? never made sense to me... it just seemed like another 'make work' project for the ever expanding military complex and of course wall st. could use some extra dough.. they eventually found osama in pakistan many years later.... maybe a bigger make work project would be going into pakistan, but the geopolitics don't work for that so much.. always pick on centrally located little countries that can't do much - afganistan, syria and etc. etc... how much they wanted to be next to iran, i have no way of knowing, but i am sure israel told them to stay for forever until they could swing a regime change in iran... one would have to be a master psychiatrist to figure out the rationale for the usa's presence in afganistan, apart from who is making a shit ton of money off of it...
and the last place you are going to hear anything along the lines i am describing would be in the msm, or one of the official mouthpieces - nyt.... if you want a steady diet of arsenic( lies) with your news - that is the place to go!
Posted by: james | May 26 2020 18:44 utc | 5
Thanks Bernhard! Much of what you wrote is new to me, and it indeed is a crucial time period!
On how the US forces fought this invisible and like you say, to a great extent imaginary enemy, what "Combat Obscura".
Its the most unfiltered look into the war, first person view of a US soldier who was tasked to film for propaganda purposed, but went rouge, and created a 100% unfiltered view.
After a legal battle the film was released, but sadly has not got much exposure.
It is so crazy and surreal, that one may think this is a movie or satire, but it isnt.
http://combatobscura.oscilloscope.net/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/combat_obscura
It is truly a trip. Mind changing.
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | May 26 2020 19:14 utc | 6
This article wants on purpose link taliban to Pakistan..there is no connection between Talibans and yanks backed Pakistani militias..and there is no pakistani talibans..they want to hide the truth confusing the people but the truth is that the violent and illegal occupation of Afghanistan created a strong resistance in an already strong population.The puppet-method didn't work there and this article is the last (I hope) attempt to give a false narrative of the events.18 years of war for nothing..what the empire has gained from this war?nothing.
Posted by: LuBa | May 26 2020 19:56 utc | 7
LuBa--
"what the empire has gained from this war?nothing"
Hmmm, not sure about that. First of all it has kept Russia out of Afghanistan, and somewhere I read that Afghanistan is very central to controlling Eurasia.
I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was planned before 911 as well, so there must be some reason for that.
Posted by: arby | May 26 2020 20:03 utc | 8
The writer of that NYT piece, Mujib Mashal, studied history (presumably the history of Afghanistan and western and southern Asia) at Columbia University - O'Bomber's alma mater, I believe - and in-between working as an NYT intern in Kabul and his current senior correspondent role, worked for a time with Al Jazeera in Doha. One wonders how much effort Mashal and other NYT writers with similar backgrounds put into reordering reality to fit whatever fairy-tale narratives they were taught at Columbia University.
The underlying aim in MM's hit-piece must surely be to set up Pakistan as a target for criticism. Some sort of narrative arc leading to removing Imran Khan as Prime Minister there can't be too far away.
Posted by: Jen | May 26 2020 20:18 utc | 9
Home in Montana helping my Mom take care of Dad recovering from surgery. He likes to watch war docs bc he was a vet.
So disgusted seeing war criminals like Stanley McCrystal and David Petraeus interviewed as military experts when both should be in prison
Posted by: Anunnaki | May 26 2020 20:28 utc | 10
Michael Hastings was a real journalist. His demolition of McChrystal the goof US war criminal should be read again and again. Vale brave journalist.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 26 2020 21:02 utc | 11
Soviet invasion? The Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty signed in December 1978 permitted - inter alia - military assistance and advice to the Afghani government if requested. Saying the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan is like saying Russia invaded Syria.
Posted by: vato | May 26 2020 21:44 utc | 14
Opium production is now seven-fold since the arrival of the empire. It is afflicting Afghanistan and neighboring countries with addiction … all the while paying for CIA operations.
Mission Accomplished.
Let’s not forget the MOAB, we are told was detonated over — caves?
Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | May 26 2020 21:46 utc | 15
@LuBa, May 26
what the empire has gained from this war?nothing.
Millions of dollars earned off-the-books from drug trafficking plus enough product to carry out narco-aggression against Iran, Russia, China and the 'stans is nothing?
Posted by: cirsium | May 26 2020 22:01 utc | 16
Superb.
The relationship with Pakistan has two aspects : the borders between the countries, imposed by the British, make no sense, dividing the Pashtun people artificially. The second is that the US has long used Pakistan as a pawn in the region. This goes back to the foundation of the country in 1948 and malign US influence in Pakistan has been the major factor in the country's problems. It is a reminder that there are no known limits to the hypocrisy of the people running the USA that the links between the Taliban, nurtured under US sponsorship in Pakistan which was used as a secure base beyond Kabul's writ, and Pakistan are attributed to Pakistan's initiative.
Another matter which one supposes that the New York Times neglected to mention is that under US sponsorship since 2001 the Heroin industry, reduced almost to nothing by the Taliban government has ballooned into the proportions we have grown to expect where US influence is established. Besides the corpses of those bombed, tortured and shot to death by the imperialist armies there are millions of victims of the drug trades, ranging from those killed by death squads in the producing countries, and those in, for example Colombia and Honduras, victimised by narco governments to the millions of addicts around the world.
Part of the truth of Afghanistan is that the US and its allies have been protecting the criminal narcotics trade in order to employ its profits for their own evil purposes.
Posted by: bevin | May 26 2020 22:03 utc | 17
Hello!
Please allow to add to b's very good overview another subject: drug planting, producing and dealing in Afghanistan. The Taliban first were against drugs (religious reasons), but when they saw that the people were exhausted by the Americans and their corrupt Afghan friends, and had no more income, they allowed the farmers to plant opium poppy for the EXPORT. Soon they also realized the profits for themselves (to change into weapons). And so it happened that Afghanistan became a major producer for the world market. It's an open question (at least for me) how much international networks with connections to US-people and US-institutions (like CIA) are involved in this drug dealing business originating in Afghanistan.
arby | 7 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was planned before 911 as well, so there must be some reason for that.
Interesting question (more see below)! A few days ago I made some research to a parallel problem: was "homeland security" also in the development before 9/11? Parallel to the war against Afghanistan another war was started: against the American people. Under the roof of 'Homeland Security' in the interior; parallel zu 'National Security' as a topic in foreign politics. Bush jun. appointed Tom Ridge within 28 days, did they have some plans before? I found some remarks in Edward LIPTON's book, Homeland Security Office (2002), indicating plannings as early as Dec. 2000 and Jan. 2001. Please also remember that there were anthrax mailings parallel to 9/11. Please remember that Homeland Security Act has some paragraphs about defense against bioweapon attacks and has some paragraphs about vaccine, too. Please remember that early plannings of homeland security had also controlling american people with the help of lockdowns. That trail was followed during the next years in 'hidden' further plannings as You may find them here:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article209776.html
https://www.voltairenet.org/article209808.html
And that all now will be further developed into future as outlined here:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article210000.html
Next interesting question: when did THEY begin to focus on the twin towers? WTC area was public property and administration. Very profitable. Then SIVLERSTEIN bought the WTC7 ground and started to built and rented it, among others, to CIA. And then THEY were looking just out of the window to see the twin towers. And then these very pofitable buildings were privatized - why? And they were insured. That privatization was a very dramatic poker which was won by SILVERSTEIN, too. Why? Some 'renovation' had to be done of course when SILVERSTEIN took over the property. I remember that companies included were overseen by one of the Bush sons (Jebb?), and so on ...
Back to the questions about planning of War against Afghanistan. There should be documents available (foreign policy planning & military planning) because the background primarily was (according to my estimation) geopolitical. But there is a greater framework within which the war against terrorism has to be seen. On the day after 9/11 a document was published for the first time which had been collected under Bush Sen. in the 1980s: 'Report of the Vice President's Task Force on Combatting Terrorism'. It says that terrorism follows overpopulation in undeveloped countries. So we are here within the idea of depopulation, and realizing that we can look on the Bill & Melinda Gates' Charitable Works as a far more human version. For further reading three LINKs are given below.
Concluding, I would like to say: unterstanding and commenting the past doesn't help much. THEY are acting and THEY are planning, day by day. Things only will change if 'we' are planning and acting, too. And if 'we' want a better world our instruments must be better than THEIRs.
Kind regards, Gerhard (Germany)
Regarding DEPOPULATION:
https://www.population-security.org (look also into INTRO)
https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/book-review-empty-planet-explores-the-world-s-next-biggest-population-threat-1.848236 (opposite perspective but the same thinking; pure academic stuff)
~~~~~~~
The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (hrsg. von Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses)
Posted by: Gerhard | May 26 2020 22:12 utc | 18
Et Tu @12--
The New York Times occasionally publishes something worthy of reading. One such item I linked to @ 1 above.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 26 2020 22:26 utc | 19
[offtopic] covid, wuhan testing update.
day 12. 7mm tested, 206 asymptomatic positives reported.
(bloomberg news)
Posted by: ptb | May 26 2020 23:08 utc | 20
@arby (7). “Hmmm, not sure about that. First of all it has kept Russia out of Afghanistan, and somewhere I read that Afghanistan is very central to controlling Eurasia.”
Seriously, I cannot tell if you’re being facetious with that statement, but in case you are not, I suggest that you read up on the Soviet Union’s disastrous experience in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It’s a damn safe bet that Russia has no desire to reprise it.
Posted by: Rob | May 26 2020 23:52 utc | 21
vato 13 wrote
Soviet invasion? The Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty signed in December 1978 permitted - inter alia - military assistance and advice to the Afghani government if requested. Saying the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan is like saying Russia invaded Syria.
Treaty of friendship, good-neighbourliness and co operation. Signed at Moscow on 5 December 1978
b fix the error in your report please.
Posted by: DeQuincey | May 27 2020 0:57 utc | 22
Posted by: arby | May 26 2020 20:03 utc | 7 I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was planned before 911 as well, so there must be some reason for that.
It's called 1) oil pipeline, and 2) heroin for the CIA to finance their "black black" operations. That's not a typo: there are "black budget" operations not identified in the Federal budget - and "black black" operations that are financed outside the Federal budget. No one knows how much that is.
The "official" Black Budget operations are described in a Harvard University document as:
On March 18, 2019 the Office the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), announced its request for the largest sum ever, $62.8 billion, for funding U.S. intelligence operations in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.1This request spans the classified funding from more than a dozen agencies that make up the National Intelligence Program (NIP).2 The U.S. Government spends these funds on data collection, counterintelligence, and covert action.3 The DNI also requested $21.2 billion for FY 2019 for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) devoted to intelligence activity in support of U.S. military operations.4 For FY2020, it is likely to request a similar figure, for a total estimated request of approximately $85 billion for the “Black Budget,” t he U.S. Government’s secret military and intelligence expenditures.
Interesting article here that shows how some of this has been done in Asia, Saudi Arabia, Central America, etc.
CIA Funding: Never Constrained by its Congressional Budget
https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/12/12/cia-funding-never-constrained-congressional-budget/
And from The Intercept - another clear example:
The U.S. Quietly Released Afghanistan’s “Biggest Drug Kingpin” From Prison. Did He Cut a Deal?
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/01/haji-juma-khan-afghanistan-drug-trafficking-cia-dea/
Before his arrest, the alleged drug trafficker worked with the CIA and the DEA, received payments from the government, and, at one point, visited Washington and New York on the DEA’s dime. ,/BLOCKQUOTEFrom the Federation of American Scientists:
A Tangled Web: A History of CIA Complicity in Drug International Trafficking
https://fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 1:34 utc | 23
Some here deny the pivotal role played by Pakistan's ISI. It was US Brezinski under Carter who in July 1978 armed the Mujahedeen six months before Soviet troops intervened in Afghanistan with the explicit aim of dragging the Soviet Union into a debilitating war to release pressure on his beloved Poland. The Pakistani ISI middle man was rewarded for its help in this by the CIA closing their eyes for Abdul Qadeer Khan's "secret" nuclear bomb production.
When the USSR dissolved in 1989 immediately warfare erupted in Kashmir. This is no coincidence, simply the shifting by ISI of many of their irregulars from Afghanistan to Kashmir. It took them till 1992 to beat Najibullah and his People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan but he was fighting without the backing of a superpower, while the CIA stuck to the ISI as cheap Sunni mercs - including Al Qaida.
Posted by: Antonym | May 27 2020 2:37 utc | 24
One of the issues which makes the left so impotent in the last few decades has been the way so many cling to patently outmoded notions of what the opposition is up to.
The grim determination with which so many cling to the notion that opium production is still a 'thing' for the CIA is a classic example.
The truth is that once Hamid Karzai was replaced as prez of Afghanistan in 2014, the need to enable O production ceased completely. Although O production & distribution had long been the Karzai clan's primary source of income, even before 2014 the family had been pressured to wind it back.
The assassination of Karzai's brother and boss of the O syndicate, Ahmed Wali Karzai back in 2011 was a classic CIA hit. The bloke was offed by his most loyal & trusted bodyguard.
The fact is that the world's media already stifled by the censorship ridden embed policy had begun studying Afghanistan's USuk installed political structure since they were not able to portray the fighting as realistically as pulitzer prize-winning Vietnam war correspondents. All that naked journalistic ambition had to flow somewhere and institutional corruption in a time of conflict is a dead set winner.
The Karzai opium connection was the first major scandal, one that got worse once it was established that the syndicate boss was not only the president's brother, he was a regional governor himself!
Whatever millions were being made by amerikans from the O was small potatoes compared to all the available MIC scams so the CIA were forced to pull back from the O business.
The notiion of any half competent intelligence agency having to resort to something so crude to grab 'black money' is ridiculous in a world where the CIA spies on all and sundry with aplomb in a society where insider trading is rife.
It is no more difficult to wash stock profits through a Cayman's bank than it is to wash O money the same way.
If the CIA really wants to stay in the drug racket, they will do as everyone else has and get into synthetics. The capital set up costs are less, far fewer people are required and it is a no-brainer to manufacture close to market greatly reducing the hazard by shortening supply lines obviating the need to undertake the risky business of taking the shit across customs controlled borders.
I say this certain in the knowledge that amerikan lefties will cling to its outmoded shibboleth of the CIA & drugs for at least another 50 years. Nowadays their belief system is more reminiscent of the catholic church clinging onto nonsense beyond its use by date than it is to any type of sure footed political movement getting ready to grab power.
It is likely any responses will reveal the responder didn't read all this post, he/she would claim outta frustration but the truth is that too many are frightened of disturbing grimly clung to outmoded beliefs by succumbing to the curse of logic just the same as any religious drongo does.
Posted by: A User | May 27 2020 2:58 utc | 25
Pepe Escobar on the Afghanistan heroin "rat line"...
Afghanistan and the CIA Heroin Ratline
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/09/afghanistan-and-the-cia-heroin-ratline/
How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan
https://tinyurl.com/y8ghcet7
As the mujahideen guerrillas gained ground against the Soviet occupation and began to create liberated zones inside Afghanistan in the early 1980s, the resistance helped fund its operations by collecting taxes from peasants who grew the lucrative opium poppies, particularly in the fertile Helmand valley. Caravans carrying CIA arms into that region for the resistance often returned to Pakistan loaded down with opium – sometimes, reported the New York Times, “with the assent of Pakistani or American intelligence officers who supported the resistance”.Charles Cogan, a former director of the CIA’s Afghan operation, later spoke frankly about the agency’s choices. “Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets,” he told an interviewer in 1995. “We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade. I don’t think that we need to apologise for this … There was fallout in term of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.”
And more...
Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration
By Peter Dale Scott
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/125230
There is no evidence to suggest that drug money from the CIA's trafficker assets fattened the financial accounts of the CIA itself, or of its officers. But the CIA profited indirectly from the drug traffic, and developed over the years a close relationship with it. The CIA's off-the-books war in Laos was one extreme case where it fought a war, using as its chief assets the Royal Laotian Army of General Ouane Rattikone and the Hmong Army of General Vang Pao, which were, in large part, drug-financed. The CIA's massive Afghanistan operation in the 1980s was another example of a war that was in part drug-financed.
Protection for Drug Trafficking in America
Thus it is not surprising that the U.S. Government, following the lead of the CIA, has over the years become a protector of drug traffickers against criminal prosecution in this country. For example both the FBI and CIA intervened in 1981 to block the indictment (on stolen car charges) of the drug-trafficking Mexican intelligence czar Miguel Nazar Haro, claiming that Nazar was "an essential repeat essential contact for CIA station in Mexico City," on matters of "terrorism, intelligence, and counterintelligence." When Associate Attorney General Lowell Jensen refused to proceed with Nazar's indictment, the San Diego U.S. Attorney, William Kennedy, publicly exposed his intervention. For this he was promptly fired.15
A recent spectacular example of CIA drug involvement was the case of the CIA's Venezuelan asset General Ramon Guillén Davila. As I write in my forthcoming book, Fueling America's War Machine,
General Ramon Guillén Davila, chief of a CIA-created anti-drug unit in Venezuela, was indicted in Miami for smuggling a ton of cocaine into the United States. According to the New York Times, "The CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels." Time magazine reported that a single shipment amounted to 998 pounds, following earlier ones "totaling nearly 2,000 pounds." Mike Wallace confirmed that "the CIA-national guard undercover operation quickly accumulated this cocaine, over a ton and a half that was smuggled from Colombia into Venezuela." According to the Wall Street Journal, the total amount of drugs smuggled by Gen. Guillén may have been more than 22 tons.
But the United States never asked for Guillén's extradition from Venezuela to stand trial; and in 2007, when he was arrested in Venezuela for plotting to assassinate President Hugo Chavez, his indictment was still sealed in Miami. Meanwhile, CIA officer Mark McFarlin, whom DEA Chief Bonner had also wished to indict, was never indicted at all; he merely resigned.
Nothing, in short, happened to the principals in this case, which probably only surfaced in the media because of the social unrest generated in the same period by Gary Webb's stories in the San Jose Mercury about the CIA, Contras, and cocaine.
So why Scott says he has no evidence that the CIA *directly* profited from drug running, he doesn't really deny the issue of "off-budget operations" being funded by that drug money.
In contrast, we have someone who "doesn't believe the CIA is doing it..."
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 3:18 utc | 26
almost anything the times writes about the middle east is going to be propaganda. i don't know if they make a profit but they are so useful it doesn't matter. like the washington bezos post.
Posted by: pretzelattack | May 27 2020 3:25 utc | 28
should have said foreign policy rather than restricting it to the middle east.
Posted by: pretzelattack | May 27 2020 3:26 utc | 29
The US military is not stupid, they had all that intel.
The US was deliberately creating conditions to foster the re-emergence of the Taliban.
I would suggest they need to have a presence in Afghanistan in order to surround Iran; reigniting the Taliban and then linking Osama bin Laden to the area gave them a perfect pretense to keep the war going.
Peace is not the objective, war is.
This most recent peace initiative is almost certain to fail; all it needs is a little spark to get the fires stoked again.
Anybody willing to hazard a guess who will provide that spark?
Posted by: HossCara | May 27 2020 3:31 utc | 30
re Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 3:18 utc | 25
As per usual all evidence of CIA involvement in drug trafficking is decades old. I don't deny that drug trafficking was once a cia play but that was a long time ago with a completely different amerikan zeitgeist; one where many considered a drug trafficker to be a modern day Robin Hood. Things changed substantially with the rise of the DEA & their concomittant "War on Drugs" propaganda and the Karzai revelations were the final embarassment.
As I have said many times before, so many in these threads refer to amerikan intelligence systemic involvement in drug trafficking as if it is a present day phenomenon, yet there has been no recent evidence of any such thing. It is just a left platitude which ignores the real crimes of the CIA, crimes which are happening now to the detriment of all humans.
Market manipulation to undermine opposition to the empire compounded by profit taking after successful market coups is the current methodology.
Entire wars throughout Africa resulting in the forced displacement of millions is the very real harvest from amerika's intelligence market farming, yet instead of outrage at that, most likely because the average greedy amerikan sees no difference between the CIA's activities and their own secret desires, amerikan opposition to empire clings to out-moded fantasies which the intelligence agencies can shrug off with a sigh of relief that the dingbats obviously have no clue what they are actually up to.
Posted by: A User | May 27 2020 4:17 utc | 31
No recent evidence of the CIA in the drug trade?
Yet The Intercept says the government just released a major Afghan drug lord. Not to mention the "rat line" that the US government itself admits exists, per the SIGAR report mentioned by Escobar.
Assertions and more assertions with zero evidence. Yet we are supposed to believe the CIA has "adopted a new leaf".
I agree that the CIA has many more crimes under its belt than just cooperating with the drug trade. But the rise of heroin in Afghanistan over the last 18 years can not have happened without the CIA being fully aware of it and once again looking the other way in order to pursue its political objectives. It is precisely the drug trade that helps finance the CIA's criminal operations against other countries, by enabling the CIA to purchase the assistance of criminal gangs in the target country - many of whom need to be paid in something other than Wall Street stocks and bonds or even laundered money.
One should also remember that if it weren't for the absurd "War on Drugs", both in this country and elsewhere, neither the CIA nor the drug lords would be capable of engaging in this practice. The only thing that would be better would be for the "Black Budget" to become an open record so the US electorate can see what its government is doing in its name.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 9:15 utc | 32
the odd typo and spelling mistake indicates that yes it is in fact b who wrote that article.
At a time when so many posts here have been deleted for no obvious reason and the article above it is typo free, it does make even long term regulars worry if b is still the source.
This post was reassuring as not only did it not attempt to force a sheep like point of view on visitors, it contained exactly the typos that indicate b wrote it.
Posted by: A User | May 25 2020 23:32 utc | 22
They have tweaked the typos a little in the last few posts and have got them less in-your-face anomalous, but there is a very distinct difference. They are not genuine English as a foreign language errors. Also the non-covid articles are still a little bland in relation to establishment interests - allowing a little bit of rope but not too much, if you like. I don't go for it.
Posted by: BM | May 27 2020 11:15 utc | 33
I love the posts by A User, but as with VK (another poster whose contributions I never miss) when that poster goes off on the deadly threat of quinine to the world, our poster from Paradise Island's strange urge to exonerate the CIA is curious in its insistency and uncharacteristic in its silliness (the poster normally being quite rational).
The point of drug trafficking is not simply to get mind damaging substances into the hands of listless youth. The trafficking is to amass cash - lots of it - outside of even the accounting done at tax havens. This cash does not need to be laundered as most of it is being used in illegal operations anyway, though a portion of it does go to financing things like new boutique air freight companies and private institutes to "train teachers in anti-terrorism tactics".
But why not go into fentanyl? It's cheaper, so the profits should be higher, right? Sad to say, but this is an ignorant understanding of how market economics works. If cheaper resulted in higher profits then car companies would focus on producing their cheapest models rather than their high end ones, but that's not what they do. Why? Because they have a better understanding of economics than do people who only think cheaper = more profit. The margins are much higher with the de luxe models. Marxists can easily understand why "greater labor content" = "higher profits" for capitalists, but that understanding would take an undergrad course or two for non-Marxists to grasp so just go with the empirical evidence that it is true from looking at what Ford sells in the US.
Next, the CIA isn't into manufacturing. The CIA's "business face" has from its inception been a network of notionally independent air freight companies. You can also think of them as a global organized crime management "consulting" firm, and those criminal organizations "employing the CIA's services" had best implement the offered recommendations if they want their knees to continue functioning. But the CIA's principal contribution to the value-added ladder is in international transportation. The CIA doesn't make guns or child sex slaves either. That stuff is farmed out and the CIA just transports the end products from where they are cheap to where they are profitable.
Even if the CIA were to get a brand new bag and go into manufacturing synthetic drugs they would find themselves directly competing with established Big Pharma corporations. The CIA's approach to management is a bit less than scientific (the "Shock Doctrine" is more their speed), so that is competition they would lose before they even begin. This isn't to say that the CIA isn't into trafficking synthetics, but manufacturing? Absolutely not. That is totally outside their realm of expertise and interest.
Additionally, referencing the "War on Drugs" makes no sense. It is widely known that where curbing drug trafficking is concerned it has been a complete and total failure. Colombian cocaine production and Afghan heroin production are both way up from prior to that "war". Of course, we're all adults here so we are smart and wise enough to know that eradicating global drug trade was not the point of the "War on Drugs" in the first place, right?
"Entire wars throughout Africa resulting in the forced displacement of millions is the very real harvest from amerika's intelligence market farming"
Sounds exciting, but I don't understand how the CIA gets suitcases full of greenbacks out of that. Instead of just assertions that cash flows magically appear out of operations to destabilize and overthrow governments I will require more specific descriptions of how those operations are, in and of themselves, profitable. To be certain, opportunities for profit making arise in such chaotic situations, but that is more the domain of regular everyday capitalists and not specifically the CIA. Sure, there is crossover between the two, but the whole point of the regime change operations is to provide those profit making opportunities to western capitalists in general, not to grow the CIA's core revenue operations into some sort of global horizontal monopoly over everything. I don't doubt that regular capitalists will be willing to give the CIA a cut of any windfall they may reap from one of the CIA operations, but that isn't a revenue stream, and the CIA tends to instead prefer to maintain a debt of obligation rather than accept payoff and close the books.
Basically, the CIA's regime change operations are net expenses and do not themselves represent revenue streams. The CIA engages in the regime change operations for the capitalist empire, not for its own enrichment. In this regard you could say that the CIA is "selfless" and "devoted to a higher ideal". I wouldn't personally use those exact words, but the Washington Bezos Post and New York Langley Times would, so their use here is to sensitize the reader to them.
Posted by: William Gruff | May 27 2020 11:40 utc | 34
A User #31
so many in these threads refer to amerikan intelligence systemic involvement in drug trafficking as if it is a present day phenomenon, yet there has been no recent evidence of any such thing. It is just a left platitude which ignores the real crimes of the CIA, crimes which are happening now to the detriment of all humans.
Well I can see no evidence that the CIA has been directed by better people today than in past decades. I can see no evidence that the CIA has embraced a purist modern code of ethics about anything let alone drug trafficking and profiteering.
Why would the CIA or DEA change its raison d'etre and suddenly reform in the face of billions of dollars to be made from illicit trades. Show me the evidence of that A User. I prefer to believe Dr Alfred McCoy and others who have studied the phenomenon and until I see some evidence that the CIA is anything but a corrupt cartel, I will assume that it is.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 27 2020 12:19 utc | 36
HossCara #30
This most recent peace initiative is almost certain to fail; all it needs is a little spark to get the fires stoked again.Anybody willing to hazard a guess who will provide that spark?
Easy to answer.... the minute the Taliban or the Afghan government propose to construct a railway from east to west linking Iran to Pakistan via Herat and Kabul will be the very minute the USA will invade again. THAT is the reason for the endless war (aside from those lovely poppies):- block all roads to China. Force China to use maritime transport, a system dominated still by UKUSA and its corrupt camp dogs.
The war is vital to the USA mendacious obstruction of OBOR and all things land route from Eurasia into Europe.
Imagine the ballistic foaming that would come from UKUSA if it were proposed to construct a land bridge across the Suez as part of OBOR. Of course that wont happen while the illegal Palestine occupier is in place.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 27 2020 12:30 utc | 37
Posted by: William Gruff | May 27 2020 11:40 utc | 34
Correct. Well said. Indeed, perhaps A User misinterprets my description of the "black black budget" to mean the CIA makes money from the drug trade. No, as I think the articles I quoted make clear, the CIA uses these funds to pay for certain operations that require the cooperation of criminal elements (and corrupt officials) who don't take American Express or have bank accounts - because the latter leave trails or the country they're in is even more corrupt than the US so the banks aren't trustworthy. Of course, it's also likely that certain CIA contractors *do* make money from the drug trade - but on the side, not as the primary purpose of the operation.
The really bizarre notion is that the CIA has "turned over a new leaf" and "we don't do that kind of thing anymore." I think I've heard that line in a couple spy movies - just before the CIA guy screws over the heroes.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 12:31 utc | 38
B writes: "It was the absurd stupidity and brutality with which the U.S. occupied the country that gave Afghans the motive to again fight against an occupier or at least to support such a fight."
Brutality yes, stupidity no. The point of U.S. policy was to ensure permanent war. So U.S. provocations and brutality served policy.
Bernhard brilliantly sets the record straight. Is it odd or ironic that it takes a Trump to move toward an end to the war. Let’s see what happens.
--After I wrote the above, I read the comments and found that Hoss Cara 30 said it better. I'll copy her/his comment.
...
The US military is not stupid, they had all that intel.
The US was deliberately creating conditions to foster the re-emergence of the Taliban.
I would suggest they need to have a presence in Afghanistan in order to surround Iran; reigniting the Taliban and then linking Osama bin Laden to the area gave them a perfect pretense to keep the war going.
Peace is not the objective, war is.
This most recent peace initiative is almost certain to fail; all it needs is a little spark to get the fires stoked again.
Anybody willing to hazard a guess who will provide that spark?
Posted by: HossCara | May 27 2020 3:31 utc | 30
Off topic but the same stupidity in Colombia
Again the FARC signed a peace treaty and was again stabbed in the back. When they fight back the US will send in their death squads and attack Venezuala.
Posted by: Gary | May 27 2020 13:39 utc | 40
Richard Steven Hack @38: "The really bizarre notion is that the CIA has "turned over a new leaf""
Some gangsters rape and murder your neighbor's daughter. You confront them on it and they say "Oh, sorry! Our bad! We won't do that again!" Does any rational person then respond "Since you say so it must be OK now." and leave it at that? Of course not! There have been no reparations; no trial; nobody has been sentenced; nobody punished; no consequences for the criminals whatsoever, yet we are to trust that the sick monsters are "better"?
But it is even worse than that. The world has never even gotten an "Oh, sorry!" from the CIA. They have never once exhibited ANY remorse or contrition for their crimes against humanity. On the contrary, they are proud of what they have done. People think the CIA "fessed up" and "admitted" things like running the coup in Iran against Mossadegh? No, they bragged about it! They are just fishing for recognition and accolades for their work.
I can somewhat understand why Americans will try to cook up fantasies about the CIA that exonerate them. After all, Americans are all complicit to one degree or another in the CIA's crimes. But why would anyone from the fringes of the empire like those in New Zealand join in on the fantasy narratives? That is harder for me to explain.
Posted by: William Gruff | May 27 2020 13:48 utc | 41
Those bombs aren't going to drop themselves.
At an average price of $100,000 to $1,000,000 somebodys making some bank.
"In 2019 alone, American military aircraft, manned and unmanned, employed 7,423 munitions of various types in Afghanistan..." times 20 years...
Posted by: jef | May 27 2020 13:50 utc | 42
Really, especially after all those Afghanistan-Papers !!??, wow
nothing new concerning the NYT.
I, personally don't know anybody who takes that sort of news-outlet
seriously, except for some writing about art and such stuff.
Long before 9/11 and Iraq it was clear - and there are lots of
evidence - that the NYT is bloody much propaganda reporting &
white-washing (mostly) american foreign policies, since the Korean + Vietnam wars.
Go to Archive.org read those old articles.
If I read anything about Russia or now China too... the level, that
niveau, such prejudices, even pure racism, raw lies, fabrications,
distortions, generalizations and whatever else. Mostly framed by
double standards, mendacity and nauseating hypocrisy...
Which makes me feel to throw up at times and think of
Herrn Joseph Goebbels' newspaper 'Der Angriff'
(https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Angriff).
Only TWP, Fox-News and Alex Jones are worse concerning China right
now. Disgusting.
Come on... the Russian Embassy pointed out recently that the NYT
won three Pulitzer prizes !!!! for reports on Russian meddling and
trolling that later proved to be wrong !!!!!!!!
BUT there was never a retraction !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.rt.com/usa/487842-new-york-times-russia-pulitzer/
I wonder MOA, hello Herr Brecht, why not focusing on that
truely embarrassing exposure of American press standards
nowadays.
If you wanne know the very bloody awful reality about Afghanistan,
it's drug trade(never better than under American occupation), the
waste of resources: over 85% of all financial help (trillions) was
wasted BY rampant corruption, the political little island of Kabul,
those warlords, tribes, torture, poverty, lacking infrastructure,
disaster health care, dying people by bombs, suicide,diseases, drugs,
no meds, a tribal class systemm, women rights far far away still,
the Taliban, their huge influence and no victory whatsoever !!!!!
Then go to http://rawa.org/temp/runews/ or
http://www.rawa.org/kathy.htm and feel ashamed as citizens of a
country that is that incompetent !!!! the brandnew evil, because real people
suffering and dying every single day because of that.
You all utterly deserve Mr. Trump's regime in your pseudo two
party mess of faking "democracy".
Posted by: Ashino | May 27 2020 14:21 utc | 43
Trump's pardon for the killing of the 'bombmaker'
Regarding this section ...
"When they wanted to grab a piece of land they told their U.S. handlers that the owner was a 'Taliban'. The U.S. troops would then removed that person one way or the other."
I always felt that something was fishy regarding the story of the officer who killed the Taliban 'bomb maker' identified from a tip he got from a tribal elder. 1. It's a war crime to kill an unarmed prisoner even if he is a bomb maker, 2. I've often wondered if this was a case of using the U.S. military carry out some form of revenge or at least how did Golsteyn know whether or not this guy really was a bomb maker?
BTW Pete Hegseth championed his case, Hegseth has never met a war criminal he didn't love if he wore a U.S. or Saudi uniform (Free the Raven 23!)
They hate us because of our freedoms
Posted by: Christian J Chuba | May 27 2020 14:39 utc | 44
The theory that the USA - advertenly or not - turned Afghanistan into a narco-state is pretty much accepted.
According to Soviet general Mahmut Gareev - who served in Afghanistan in 1989 and 1990 - drug trafficking in the country had practically stopped during that time period (i.e. 1989-1990). After the Soviet occupation was over, it spiked by 44% - 90% of which was trafficked through ex-USSR nation-states.
He also stated that American officials disclosed to him that the newly produced drug was frequently transported through American planes, which was giving the USA (he doesn't single out the CIA, but the nation as a whole) circa USD 50 billion per year, which were then used (recycled) to maintain the American occupation in Afghanistan.
This created a vicious cycle where, in order to keep the occupation of Afghanistan going, the USA had to keep it as a narco-state, which increased mysery and hampered economic development, which increased the grip of the primitive warlordship system.
This version of the story, of course, comes from Russian sources - so it's up to you to believe it or not. American historians, for obvious reasons, don't believe in it and simply claim the Afghan narco-state theory is Soviet-Russian propaganda.
As for the CIA involvement in drug trafficking, it comes from American professor Alfred McCoy (University of Wisconsin). In 2010, he gave the Bundestag (yes, the German State) a study titled Kann irgendjemand den weltgrößten Drogenstaat befrieden?. In it, he hypothetizes (but not concludes) that the CIA did indeed participate directly in Afghanistan's drug trafficking and that it gave Hamid Karzai's government USD 2.5 million in bribes - the equivalent to one fourth of the country's entire yearly budget. Russian embassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, also stated that it was popular wisdom of the time that the CIA was an integral part of the Afghan drug trafficking, using American planes to transport it.
In 2011, it was estimated the poppy fields represented 9% of Afghanistan's GDP. Maybe some of the heroin goes directly to American troops occupying the country: from 2002 to 2010, the number of heroin-consuming soldiers rose ten-fold.
Source: Moniz Bandeira, Second Cold War, chapter IX.
i get a kick out of the linguist specialists who can tell whether it is b or not writing.... that rehash got tired at least a few threads ago but some are still at it..
it is one thing for trump to say we are taking the oil... it would be harder for him to say we are taking the poppy revenue... but i suspect they do..
Posted by: james | May 27 2020 15:42 utc | 46
vk@45
CIA sponsorship of and profit taking from the narcotics trades is pretty well documented in Operation Gladio by Paul L Williams.
Posted by: bevin | May 27 2020 16:08 utc | 47
Posted by: vk | May 27 2020 15:18 utc | 45
Russian embassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov,
Kabulov... hehe, charming.
Source: Moniz Bandeira, Second Cold War, chapter IX.
Bandeira... oh boy, this is even better.
Posted by: hopehely | May 27 2020 16:12 utc | 48
There is plenty of evidence that the CIA remains invested in the drugs trade, particularly in Latin America. Both the president of Honduras and his brother have been indicted, within the past few weeks, in New York for re exporting large quantities of cocaine into the United States. Then there is Colombia and Bolivia.
The use of drug money by the CIA is not necessary, although there was a time when Congress was more vigilant than it has been in the past few decades, but it has always been extremely convenient as a source of off the books funds. Its main role, however has been to bind the interests of criminal gangs to those of the capitalist state.
Posted by: bevin | May 27 2020 16:20 utc | 49
@ Posted by: bevin | May 27 2020 16:20 utc | 49
Yes, Latin America was converted into a narco-subcontinent purely for the American domestic market (as production of cocaine in US territory is illegal).
There's joke that states that, if Vancouver start consuming as much cocaine as the Americans, Seattle would become a degenerated Mexican-style cartel in one year.
I did not know that Sovjet invaded Afghanistan🤔
You need to fix that FUKUS narrative in your article, simply bc it is a lie and if you let it stand it makes your writing shoddy and suspect.
The US and its vassals invaded Afghanistan, Sovjet NEVER did.
Do you now also write that Russia invaded Syria?
If not, why? After all the 2 scenarios are the same only separated by time.
Posted by: Per/Norway | May 27 2020 16:50 utc | 51
Jen #9:
"The writer of that NYT piece, Mujib Mashal, studied history (presumably the history of Afghanistan and western and southern Asia) at Columbia University"
Why would you assume that the NYT reporter studied those history subjects at Columbia?
The point that bernard is making here is that Mashal and his editors are telling a fairy tale, one you highlight as such. However, anyone with a cursory familiarity with the US occupation of Afghanistan--ironically just from reading the NY Times--would already know the Taliban had disappeared in 2002, and the country was at peace. Then the US forces went "insurgent" hunting resulting in the US losing.
So it is unlikely that the NY Times reporter studied such well confirmed to be fables at Columbia, or elsewhere.
The reporter has "read" the prevailing winds in 2020, and come up with standard excuses that no one paying any attention will believe.
Posted by: Jay | May 27 2020 17:18 utc | 52
Remember back before FUKUS the selling of opiates to China was highly lucrative and geopolitically useful. The US through the CIA learned from that approach - Iran Contra anyone?
These days, besides their obvious presence in the Afghanistan drug trade, the US has basically turned Colombia into a CIA satellite and the "War on drugs" might be renamed as the "War on rival drug gangs". Watch Bolivia follow the same path as Colombia now that Evo Morales was forced to flee...
Believing the CIA is out of the drug business is naive at best...
Posted by: fopdoodle | May 27 2020 17:20 utc | 53
The NYT article also brushes over another big factor in a single sentence: "With the United States mostly distracted with the war in Iraq, the insurgency widened its ambitions and territory". (always note when a source describes the US invasion & occupation of Iraq as a "war"). There are good reasons to believe that the US would have failed in Afghanistan even if we set goals and tried to implement them, but the Cheney Regime didn't care or bother - the invasion of Iraq was much more important to them.
Posted by: elkern | May 27 2020 17:44 utc | 54
46 james.
The first time I read this "conspiracy"theory on b on this site my reaction was:Well,just check his 2020 and 2019 Easter wishes in a close reading for a start.I have not done so,being lazy loyal and confident,but maybe it is in the way of one of the linguist specialist you mentioned to do such a close reading.Interested in what they find I am though.
Posted by: willie | May 27 2020 22:36 utc | 55
Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the crap the CIA pulls...
The CIA’s Murderous Practices, Disinformation Campaigns, and Interference in Other Countries Still Shape the World Order and U.S. Politics
https://tinyurl.com/ycjetb47
This propaganda was sustainable because the recent history and the current function of the CIA has largely been suppressed. Thankfully, a just-released book by journalist Vincent Bevins — who spent years as a foreign correspondent covering two countries still marred by brutal CIA interference: Brazil for the Los Angeles Times and Indonesia for the Washington Post — provides one of the best, most informative and most illuminating histories yet of this agency and the way it has shaped the actual, rather than the propagandistic, U.S. role in the world.Entitled “The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World,” the book primarily documents the indescribably horrific campaigns of mass murder and genocide the CIA sponsored in Indonesia as an instrument for destroying a nonaligned movement of nations who would be loyal to neither Washington nor Moscow. Critically, Bevins documents how the chilling success of that morally grotesque campaign led to its being barely discussed in U.S. discourse, but then also serving as the foundation and model for clandestine CIA interference campaigns in multiple other countries from Guatemala, Chile, and Brazil to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Central America: the Jakarta Method.
He interviews the author today on the Intercept Youtube channel.
As Gruff correctly notes, are we to take the people behind this sort of thing as "reformed"? I think not.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 27 2020 23:35 utc | 56
@ 55 willie...
here is what they or you have to sleuth, lol...
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/12/christmas.html
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/christmas.html#comments
Posted by: james | May 28 2020 0:35 utc | 57
not much to sleuth.. same message both years... automated message, lol....
2017 looks much the same..
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/christmas.html#comments
Posted by: james | May 28 2020 0:38 utc | 58
Thanks for looking it up,James!
But I was talking about his Happy Easter message,because that happened way into the lockdown controverse.I read it at the time,and b sais something like this is a bad translation of Goethe's poem that was in german last year.Well,I 'll put it on my to-do-list.Have a good day ,sir!
Posted by: willie | May 28 2020 6:59 utc | 59
But why not go into fentanyl? It's cheaper, so the profits should be higher, right... <- discussion of hypotheticals concerning CIA or "shadow CIA" involved in opium derivatives till today
Secret operations require channels for smuggling, bribing, cultivating "deniable assassins" etc., and drug trade is good for all of that. Thus it would not surprise me if fentanyl production and smuggling has a shadow CIA involvement too. One nice thing about it would be that fentanyl production in China is banned or severely restricted, and China being a huge country, in has a lot of bribable pockets in the country side, so we have a potential of smuggling and bribing in China itself.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 28 2020 18:34 utc | 60
Actually, with the advantages of participation in the drug trade being so high, it is almost strange why the effects are so meager in Venezuela, nominated as number one USA-an enemy in the hemisphere. Nevertheless, after long "unproductive period", Ecuador was bribed into submission, and there can be many invisible successes too.
Posted by: Piotr BermanO | May 28 2020 18:40 utc | 61
Two corrections. Fentanyl precursor chemicals, presumably with multiple uses, are made in China, and they travel on some mysterious route to Mexico. Second, for unclear reasons certain "Piotr BermanO" emerged and posted what I intended to post under my name. Assume that this is my post.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 28 2020 18:44 utc | 62
part of the purpose of the "drug war" is the corruption of societies, especially the youth, in the name of a bugbear.
reagan's war on drugs while iran-contra is running, thru which cocaine will be dumped on US cities, which will be used to justify the war on drugs.
the competence, much less omni-competence, of any of these DOD/Intel shitheads should be more assumed no more than one assumes Pompeius Maximus or capo don trump could boil a hot dog. malevolence can run several intersecting agendas at once, obviously. hey, one industry that has come home from US foreign investment in drug trade is domestic construction. best jobs in many places are now in the prisons. think that's an accident?
all kinds of room in the wild redoubts of the Af/Pak theater to experiment w/lots of fun weapons and techniques, incl on one's own troops. can't have the troopies fighting terrorism in Kabul getting corona can we? better test this vaccine on them. for national security.
Posted by: jason | May 28 2020 21:52 utc | 63
That is simply wrong. Between the end of 2001 and 2007 there were no Taliban. The movement had dissolved.
Pardon me, but how would you know? -- are you Afghani? -- have you ever lived in or been to Afghanistan? -- I could no doubt easily find media reports that say the opposite -- you could no doubt find media reports to corroborate your claim -- so it comes down to what one wants to believe.
Please.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Thanks b for doing a good job in restating the record. IMO, the Outlaw US Empire followed the same MO as it did in Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines well before them all, all of which were based on the White Supremacist Settler credo underlying the culture of the US military that was just called out--again--in this very powerful NY Times Editorial, and Iraq was no different either. The contrast between the Editorial Board and its Newsroom writers is quite stark when their products are compared--one lies about recent history while the other attempts to educate more fully about the very sordid past of the most revered federal government institution.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 26 2020 17:41 utc | 1