Opium fields spread across Iraq as farmers try to make ends meet

God = Gold, Oil, Drugs.  

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The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.

Afghan with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north- east of Baghdad.

At a heavily guarded farm near the town of Buhriz, south of the provincial capital Baquba, poppies are grown between the orange trees in order to hide them, according to a local source.

The shift by Iraqi farmers to producing opium was first revealed by The Independent last May and is a very recent development. The first poppy fields, funded by drug smugglers who previously supplied Saudi Arabia and the Gulf with heroin from Afghanistan, were close to the city of Diwaniyah in southern Iraq. The growing of poppies has now spread to Diyala, which is one of the places in Iraq where al-Qa’ida is still resisting US and Iraqi government forces. It is also deeply divided between Sunni, Shia and Kurd and the extreme violence means that local security men have little time to deal with the drugs trade. The speed with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced around the towns of Khalis, Sa’adiya, Dain’ya and south of Baladruz, pointing out that these are all areas where al-Qa’ida is strong.

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Kabul rejects US pleas to spray opium poppies

Renewed American efforts to persuade the Afghan government to use crop dusters against poppy production have failed, despite Washington dispatching a top scientist to advocate the safety of spraying herbicides.Charles Helling met representatives of the Afghan ministries of counter-narcotics, health, and rural rehabilitation on Sunday to discuss fears over the side effects of glyphosate, one of the most effective methods for the mass eradication of opium poppies. Kabul, however, remained unconvinced.

“We have rejected the spraying of poppy in Afghanistan for good reasons: the effect on the environment, other smaller crops and on human genetics,” the acting minister for counter-narcotics, General Khodaidad (who uses only one name), told the Guardian. “It was a very friendly discussion, but it is difficult to change our mind,” he added.

The US maintains that the herbicide is safe for the environment and the local population. It says the misgivings of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, are based on myth and Taliban disinformation.

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International narcotics agenda behind Myanmar instability

by Larry Chin

Global Research, September 28, 2007
For the past month, the military government of Myanmar has been the focus of increasingly strident demonstrations, resulting in violent military crackdowns in recent days.

What must be noted is the Bush administration’s open support for the dissidents, in conjunction with growing international (Western) support behind a coup attempt, and the likely parapolitical goals behind this agenda.

The demise of the Golden Triangle: bad for business

According to a report by Thomas Fuller of the International Herald Tribune, the Golden Triangle has, in recent years, lost its prominence as a narco-region. In fact, the legendary Triangle now accounts for as little as 5% of world opium supply, according to some estimates.

Notorious Golden Triangle loses sway in opium trade

Thomas Fuller, International Herald Tribune, September 11, 2007

Not surprisingly, the Golden Crescent and Afghanistan now under control of the US and its drug-intelligence proxies, is by far and away the world’s number one opium supplier, as well as the top overall drug producing region, dwarfing Colombia and the Golden Triangle.

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Afghanistan’s opium crop at an all-time high

by Jerry Mazza

Global Research, December 9, 2006
Online Journal – 2006-12-07The question is why. Under Taliban rule, which began in the late 1990s, Afghanistan just about kicked the growing habit by 2001. After five years the Taliban is slipping back in, but poppy production has grown by leaps and bounds.

According to the Washington Post, “Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.

“In addition to a 26 percent production increase over the past year — for a total of 5,644 metric tons — the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.”

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The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire

The Bush family’s involvement in drug-running is an open secret, but Dick Cheney’s direct link to a global drug pipeline through a US construction company is less well known.

FROM MEDELLIN TO MOSCOW WITH BROWN & ROOT

Halliburton Corporation’s Brown & Root is one of the major components of the Bush-Cheney Drug Empire. The success of Bush Vice-Presidential running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five-year, US$3.8 billion “pig-out” on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans is only a partial indicator of what may happen, now that the Bush ticket has won the US presidential election.

A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) (www.public-i.org), suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney’s tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton’s most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant Brown & Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown & Root’s past – as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself – connects to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.

Last June, the lead Washington, DC, attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling, and also a beneficiary of US-backed loans to pay for Brown & Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fundraiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown & Root has been connected to illegal drugs, and the fact is that this “poster child” of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street’s efforts to maintain domination of the half-trillion-dollar-a-year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to illegal drugs than most suspect and who is also Halliburton’s largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown & Root’s successes continue.

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Sibel Edmonds case: The real culprits of 911

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has made a number of disturbing claims about the 911 attacks, but perhaps the most disconcerting is her oft-repeated statement that the US authorities have covered up an entire organizational layer within al-Qaeda.In the documentary, Kill The Messenger, Sibel says:
“They haven’t mentioned anybody who actually is connected to Al Qaida, in mid or higher level.”
Similarly, Sibel often says:
“And I would like to give an analogy – if you take the War on Drugs, imagine if they only went after street dealers and they refused to investigate the mid-level dealers or the drug lords. This is very similar.”
As we approach another 911 anniversary, it’s time we learnt:
1) Who are these mid and high-level al-Qaida operatives?
2) What role did they play in planning 911?
3) What operational support did they provide?
4) Why they are still roaming free today?
5) Why did the US authorities continually exclude key participants from the official narrative?

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