Pakistani police examine nearly one ton of hashish seized from a truck in Karachi.
Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Fight Drugs (click on)
VIENNA, Austria, June 13-Iran
Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to strengthen their joint efforts to prevent cross-border drug trafficking.Ministers of public security and counter-narcotics from the three countries said in a joint statement they would act to reduce the threat posed by Afghanistan's opium."This transnational threat requires a cooperative solution," they said following a meeting in Vienna hosted by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.Secretary General of Drug Control Headquarters Brigadier Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam is Iran's representative in the event. The three countries also agreed to take steps to improve border management, the statement said.These will include building more physical barriers, boosting law enforcement capacity, launching joint counter-narcotic operations, better communication, and increased intelligence-sharing, for example about trafficking routes, traffickers and suspicious shipments....
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran to Tackle Opium Trade (Update1) (click on)
By Ed Johnson
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran agreed to crack down on drug trafficking that's funding the Taliban insurgency and destabilizing the region.
The three countries will share intelligence on smuggling routes, bolster frontier security and hold joint counter- narcotics operations, ministers said in a statement following talks in Vienna yesterday.
The agreement can help solve the world's biggest drug control problem,'' said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which hosted the talks.
About 92 percent of the world's opium, the raw material for heroin, is produced in Afghanistan, where it generates more than $3 billion a year for farmers and traffickers, according to the UN. Revenue from the sale of illegal drugs is being used to finance terrorist training bases across the border in Pakistan, buy weapons and explosives for suicide bombings, and import the chemicals needed for drug refining, the world body says.
The three nations also agreed to destroy drug laboratories, halt money laundering, stop the smuggling of precursor chemicals and tackle political corruption.
It would make complete sense for these countries to band together without the assistance of any Western countries to solve their problems. In my opinion it is a welcome change, to stop the flow of drugs into their countries. It would solve many problems including the funding of terrorist networks.
How long has the American public heard how terrorist networks are funded with income from warlords growing opium. How long have we heard how Afghanistan is the world's capital in the opium trade? So, in finding a way to defeat the drug infrastructure in the region will also defeat the terrorist networks that cause the violence. Right?
Now, does that take a military operation to achieve? More than likely not and if there were a military operation to achieve that goal would it in turn have a reverse effect in that citizens would take up arms against their Islamic governments to stop the violence against them? More than likely. If these three countries used a military operation to defeat drug trades that fund terrorists, the terrorists would turn right around and cause a cultural backlash that would cause civil war. Is everyone getting the picture?
Now.
As long as the directive to defeat a drug trade is going forward, why then is all this mess coming out of Iraq and why is Iraq not as much a part of this initiative as Iran is?
Influx of Al Qaeda, money into Pakistan is seen (click here)
U.S. officials say the terrorist network's command base is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
May 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — A major CIA effort launched last year to hunt down Osama bin Laden has produced no significant leads on his whereabouts, but has helped track an alarming increase in the movement of Al Qaeda operatives and money into Pakistan's tribal territories, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation.In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda's command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network's operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.The influx of money has bolstered Al Qaeda's leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of Al Qaeda funds, with the network's leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells....
Opium: Iraq's deadly new export (click here)
Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears that the country could become a major heroin supplier
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 23 May 2007
Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.
Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.
The shift to opium production is taking place in the well-irrigated land west and south of Diwaniya around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah. The farmers are said to be having problems in growing the poppies because of the intense heat and high humidity. It is too dangerous for foreign journalists to visit Diwaniya but the start of opium poppy cultivation is attested by two students from there and a source in Basra familiar with the Iraqi drugs trade.
Drug smugglers have for long used Iraq as a transit point for heroin, produced from opium in laboratories in Afghanistan, being sent through Iran to rich markets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Saddam Hussein's security apparatus in Basra was reportedly heavily involved in the illicit trade. Opium poppies have hitherto not been grown in Iraq and the fact that they are being planted is a measure of the violence in southern Iraq. It is unlikely that the farmers' decision was spontaneous and the gangs financing them are said to be "well-equipped with good vehicles and weapons and are well-organised"....
So. Ahh. Like what gives already? HUH? And why is the USA presence in any country where they 'set up war camp' a place where quality of life cannot overcome strife that propagates drug networks of illegal activity including, especially in the Middle East, terrorist networks?
Why is that? Why are we still in Iraq? Why are things going so badly in Afghanistan? And why is it that the 'culture of violence' living within the Muslim/Islamic populous, 'continues/carries on' without abatement regardless of any efforts by the West? Why is that?
