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The Taliban's Heroin Ploy
Army officials are not worried about large, far-flung narcotic cartels run by U.S. soldiers. Instead, they are concerned that some individuals may be tempted to make some fast and easy money. But the Army does not have the resources or ability to monitor every soldier who wants to earn a year’s extra pay by mailing home a couple of packages of virtually pure heroin. The Daily Beast has learned that the DEA, which has the responsibility for developing major drug cases inside Afghanistan, does not have any American service personnel currently serving in Afghanistan or Iraq under a drug-related investigation.
This does not cover the more than 18,000 private armed security contractors, such as Blackwater and Armor Group, now working in those countries under Pentagon control. Some in the Afghan Ministry of Anti-Narcotics believe the private mercenaries might have more incentive and means to deal in heroin.
A senior DEA officer told me the agency is working hard to try to prevent heroin trafficking from Afghanistan becoming an American problem. "We're trying to build the complex cases to stop the Pablo Escobars of Afghanistan from getting a permanent foothold," he said. "We don't have the ability to stop every mom and pop dealer in a country where opium is the biggest cash crop. Some people are just going to fly under the radar."
UPDATE: The substance-abuse rates in U.S. battalions during the Vietnam War has been revised since this article originally posted.
Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast's chief investigative reporter. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published this month. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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Gerald Posner is former chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, on topics ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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Gerald Posner is former chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, on topics ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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Gerald Posner is former chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, on topics ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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kscr14
Of course this would happen in Afganistan. Here we go again....Vietnam. I say bring them home, NOW.
luckyooo1
Afghanistan is a haven for terrorist that wont to destroy America,we need to stop them before they come here
larry278
Yes, Afghanistan isn't a bit like 'Nam. WTF did I put my works? I got the jonses, the smack but no works. Got to shoot up & get well. Can I use your works, dog?
numonk
.....
You clearly were not in Vietnam in the early sixties or late seventies.
kingharvest
Oh dear. I can see Taliban and al Qaeda standing on the street corners in Afghanistan muttering "who's buying, who's selling." Those dastardly punks. If up want to do a story, how about the one detailing how regular Americans are funding the war against America with THEIR drug habits, all bought from the Taliban.
flyoverland
Just another reason to adopt my plan to deploy ten Cessnas with crop dusting equipment.
On the plus side, I'm sure the recruitment offices in Hollywood are busy.
oliverckerr
The Cessnas flaw: Sam shouder held missiles.
michaelslevinson.com
franbogado
"Heroin", see U, drug oil, the century's gold :|
oliverckerr
The key to winning Afghanistan and Pakistan, to dissolving al Qaeda and Taliban, is opium, father of all opiates. That dirt-cheap heroin readily bought on the streets of Manhattan began a sleepy Pashtun poppy, milked in Afghanistan, oceans away.
That 17% pure heroin bag; available on select street corners everywhere, started out poppy grown in Afghanistan. 93% of the world's opium is grown and refined into heroin right on their farms! Bill Gates must marvel at their market share. Monopoly!
Irreplaceable, worldwide; a blessing for all sides, especially us.
The heroin is smuggled throughout Europe, tons going by plane and ship to South America where, repackaged, its origin is disguised so no one gets wise; from there, routed to Mexican cartels, and from Mexico, into USA. For the cartels this wholesale heroin is billions of dollars in retail business.
So the key to stuffing Taliban and al Qaeda, eradicating their corruption of Afghanistan, is to choke the opium supply, which would wipe out the trade; and choke their criminal customers from across the sea.
The Taliban's and al Qaeda's end nets millions of dollars, peanuts, falafel on the table for Taliban's "freedom fighters" in Pakistan; and money for the families of al Qaeda's suicide bombers throughout the region. Without the opium heroin trade, al Qaeda and Taliban would be crushed. The western hemisphere drug cartels would be facing recession.
In Iraq, whoever is running the roads, wins. In Afghanistan, the opium dollar is fueling the whole war! Theirs is a poor country with a rich culture. Whoever controls the opium harvest will have battled for that right. The hardy farmers get only enough to live decently and plant their fresh poppy.
The Taliban "freedom fighters" would leave for home in a heartbeat, were they not getting fed. The Taliban "leaders" have a payroll they must meet. Obama is our Commander-in-Chief, the civilian boss in charge, but his military bureaucrats are misleading the war.
We don't need to build an Afghanistan army. The Afghanis know how to fight. Abraham Lincoln established a sea embargo to win the Civil War. Without supplies by ship from Europe, the Confederate Army was doomed.
Our troops get killed on border patrols between Pakistan and Afghanistan to protect our way of life across the ocean. A stone's throw away, Mother Nature's opiate is illegally grown? How can our military be so dumb as to allow this plunder creating millions of terrorist jihad dollars?
The Afghan opium is key. We own the opium and the country is ours. Free.
Opium control means renegade Taliban, al Qaeda terrorists, and warlords are on the road again. Skedaddled or killed.%u2028%u2028
Our guys must begin digging foxholes in every opium field, making deals with the Afghani farmers we are purchasing their whole crop, for top dollar, in raw opium form. The farmers don't have to brew the black sap into a dangerous snowy heroin powder, so they are poppy plentiful, an ounce for the house, compliments of us.
The war momentum will immediately shift! Instead of Taliban's "freedom fighters" picking us off as we patrol the dangerous Afghanistan border, we will occupy the poppy fields and wait for Taliban to show up for our feast. The key to their quality of life, to shipping their kids off to the Ivy League is based on who gets to cash Afghanistan's opium crop.
Many Taliban will change colors of their turbans and disappear into the Pakistan crowds.
We need to get busy, prepare the fields, create comfortable foxholes on every poppy acre, booby trap the brush surrounding, with a safe swath to the farmhouse, and make it clear, by CIA, shelling out Cash In Advance, we are purchasing their whole raw opium crop but paying top refined heroin price, so the farmers are with us!
Taliban, Al Qaeda and warlords will have to descend from their caves and come across the poppy fields instead of picking us off with roadside attacks. We are purchasing the poppy crop, negotiating fair and square how much sap each plant has. The plants, ripening by day, are the draw for Taliban, al Qaeda and warlords to attack, the only way they can survive, by offing our troops dug in the poppy fields. When they step on the yellow brick road to battle we can cancel them from above.
The extra virgin first milking is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Our enemies know that. The farmers are paid. At 4:00 a.m. we begin snipping every plant two inches above ground with a brush cutter, just like that. At dawn, we chop up every poppy and spread the soil to fertilize next year's crop.
So good-bye Taliban grunt, and don't step on any land mines going home
A couple million addicts in Europe will be going cold turkey! The Mexican and Columbian drug cartels will be out of heroin, and lose billions of dollars in sales.
Regardless bureaucrats will be viciously united against this plan. The status quo is how the rigid government's bureaucrats want to go.
But with a cash infusion at the farm level, Afghanistan will begin to flourish. The Afghani people will start rebuilding their own country, without corruption, roads and schools decided by tribal leaders in the farm districts, with a helping hand from us.
We must also purchase their whole marijuana crop and bring each harvest to America for medicinal purposes. Afghani marijuana is the most potent, best for relief of chemotherapy's side effects.
The opium pays al Qaeda's world salary. But who controls the opium wins the terrorist war. Poppy strategy will accomplish that! Those opposed want things the way they are. Follow the money. In the event we ignore the terrorist's cash cow, and leave, al Qaeda, opium rich, will have the funds to execute their murderous plans. Once was enough! We cannot allow that. %u2028%u2028
http://michaelslevinson.com%u2028
Johnnyappleseed
Mikey, too long, cut down the verbage and get to the point.
oliverckerr
The point is we have an opportunity to seriously dent the whole underground economy by occupying the poppy fields and paying the farmers for their crop.
What i have done is spell it out so people can see there is more to the issue than a flip "yapp" opinion.
nanbmaroc
oh, sure..Now we have another War on Drugs...how brilliant is that, how marvelously successful has that trick been so far ?
The way to end it is to End the War... entirely.
Afghanistan has always had poppy fields for heroin. Always.
Since Neolithic times. And probably before.
The only way to make them stop growing poppies and Taliban is to bomb the entire country right back to the Stone Age...oops, I forgot , they Are in the Stone Age. Well...just get the hell out of there. Now.
Its a Tar Baby for sure.
VietnamEOD
It is completely untrue that the heroin in New York is from Afghanistan. Most of that opium ends up in North Africa and Europe. US heroin comes almost exclusively from Mexico and Columbia and they make their own, they don't import it from Afghanistan.
sebastian869
Couple of problems with your opinions. 1. Afghan heroin does not go to Mexico to get smuggled into the US. Mexicans have their own heroin supply (its called black tar). Moreover, heroin can be "ID" chemically so that the root origin can be determined. This means the authorities would know if the heroin was "made" in Asia or South America. 2. Mexican cartels serve the west and mid western US and the Colombians serve NYC and the residing areas with powder heroin called heroin number 4. Mexican dope is less refined called black tar. Afghan heroin supplies Europe, Asia and Russia not the USA (in any bulk)
3. What do you mean by choking their supply? Eradication? Easier said than done, look at plan Colombia.
4. I do agree that the key to winning the war in Afghanistan is cutting off the funds from opium sales to the Taliban. Problem is the military does not want to play any role is stopping poppies and there is no native law enforcement in the country to fight that fight.
5. The afghan war is now morphing into an Afghan/Pakistan conflict; this is by far a huge turn for the worst. As we have already wiped out al Qaeda in Afghanistan we have to finish the mission and kill them in Pakistan which is their new home base. We have no right to tell the Afghans who their leaders will be. If they want the Taliban we have no right and no business staying over there wasting American lives and treasure defying their will.
6. Without opium the Asian cartels would be crushed but not the south American nor the Mexicans, as they have other "hard" and "soft" drugs that they still control.
7. Don't know why you mention IRAQ, there is no illegal harvest there. Nor a drug epidemic like in Afghanistan.
8. Read some books and watch a few movies. The American civil war was NOT won via a naval blockade. It was won with a land army and good old fashioned army battles called war. Look at the American revolution. The brits had a navy we (for the most part) did not and yet we won the conflict. Goes to show you, you can have all the ships and aircraft in the world but to take and hold a strip of ground you need a soldier.
P.S. Sorry to bust you're bubble but to win any conflict you need an army (of more than one would be preferable) and what does the fact that they have a civil war have to do with them trying to build a country (which does require a national army). Oh yeah, the Mexicans and Colombians grow their own opium natively they don't import it. Lastly, where will you get the half a trillion dollars to pay the farmers from? Not to mention that's just for one year, where will you get the funds from next year and the year after that and the year after that.... When we have major economic turmoil at home? You're hypothesis sounds good on paper but is not practical.
felixsama
It would be a more respectful effort than paying people for the children we've killed as 'collateral damage'.
But we still just plain ass have no right to be there.
Cantora
Nice
Only one minor flaw. In Late 2000 the Taliban Govt in Afghanistan put out a full ban on opiate production in Afghaninstan. Through the 90's they actually reducted the production rate from 80% of the worlds opiates down to around 20%.
As soon as the US decided to invade Afghaninstan...surprise surprise. Opiate production soars and now we see 95% of the worlds opiate supplies are from Afghanistan.
you have to ask yourself...Why would the USA invade a country like Afghanistan and wage war on a Govt who have just managed to pretty much destroy 60% of the worlds opiates? Crazy.
"Afghan-derived heroin" from the "pool" of other abusively-used opiates, one can accordingly crudely estimate 0.9 x 12,262 persons/year x 8.5 years = 93,804 US opiate drug-related deaths (0.9 x 2,011 deaths/year x 8.5 years = 15,384 heroin-related deaths) connected with the aftermath of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan
what a great world we live in.
http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310309.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/1/4/1/p 201416_index.html
meisme
all your problem is that you never want to accept your own faults, pointing fingers is so Americans. Super models, movie stars, singers etc are known to be drug addicts, well known, drug users roam the streets, have you ever try to get them and put them into rehabs? Control those drug addicts and those sellers in your own country before blaming others, if you can't control the problems in your own households, don't ever go out and start to blame others.
blinky
So much cheaper than occupation and war in every way, why don't we just buy the entire poppy crop wholesale every year?
oliverckerr
Exactly.
michaelslevinson.com
numonk
Pharmaceutical companies do NOT like competition.
donatello
What makes you think we don't already? The American government elite have done business with drug lords since our inception. Even old Ben Franklin loved his Coke and Iran/Contra wasn't about halloween candy.
dlc1550
So the old reports that the Taliban destroyed the poppy fields were lies too?
Who's lying here?
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_10_01_heroin.html
oliverckerr
The Taliban was lying! 93% of the world's opium (refined into heroin) grows in Afghanistan. All of the illegal heroin sold in America originates as opium poppy in Afghanistan!
Used to be they produced marvelous rugs, now they have a magic carpet to send their kids to Ivy League schools.
michaelslevinson.com
pjsoft
I wish your comment about recruitment applied only to Hollywood/LA area. Unfortunately, the drug problem is prevelant in all parts of this country. Too bad we did not spend the dollars here to address this problem instead of looking for WMD's and nation building in Iraq.
numonk
We do.
Prisons are quite full.
Nice job, by the way.
BipartisanCurious
Heroin? pfft. Just give the troops free World of Warcraft in their downtime. That crack will keep them occupied!
djanimaequeen
Word. I know I'm addicted!
msn04061960
I see our government and military isn't serious about winning any war still. In war you destroy the enemies will to fight as well as their ability to survive. That is why you can't fight a war against these terrorist in the conventional way. To win you must destroy the country like they did in WWII. The first thing you do is destroy the poppies or opium crops country wide.
numonk
You WILL have the urban environments of the western world destroyed with such a tactic.
Aside from the fact that ANYONE who wants to work with white people in the middle east is due to their high on something.
kscr14
I saw a story on how most Afgan women are so depressed that they chew on the poppy leaves for comfort and many are addicted. We owe it to our men and women fighting this insanity in Afganistan to protect them from this tempting drug. Will our leaders listen ?
Johnnyappleseed
The optive word is leaders, of which we have so few, if any.
nanbmaroc
You mean that depressed Afghani women arent allowed to even duck out of the insanity ?
Goodness, we cant have women on Poppy Leaves, when we drop a drone on them and kill their children and burn their faces off...heavens NO .
If I were there , I would kill to keep my heroin escape from what the Americans were doing to my life.
littlepitcher
I've read one article claiming that up to 1/3 of Afghan men are addicted, and that their addiction and use at home creates an addiction/withdrawal cycle among women and children.
The potential for corruption and illicit profit is enormous. In America, heroin money purchases human resources officers so the drug can be trucked cross-country inside legal shipments, by bribed loading-dock employees. I have no doubt whatever that testing personnel and supervisors in the armed forces are bought off the same way, and that the brass are still wearing heroin in waist belts, when reentering the States. Don't trust every PR officer you read or hear.
maddymappo
Can't the Daily Beast get someone with better credentials than Posner to write about this stuff? This guy has written so much crap it undermines the seriousness of the issue.
Thank you.
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