Some say it’s in the name of spreading democracy; others say it’s the relentless pursuit of oil.
It’s possible both are smokescreens, however, masking the most protected drug cartel in the world.
Yes, “Uncle Sam” just might be the biggest smack pusher of all time.
It seems government agencies have been encouraging, protecting and ensuring mass heroin production in remote regions of the world.
In 2001 the U.S., NATO and allied forces invaded Afghanistan to dismantle the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and remove the Taliban government. The United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct. 7, 2001, with the United Kingdom, Germany and other western allies.
Following the 2001 U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, the British government was entrusted to carry out a drug eradication program, which would allow Afghan farmers to get out of poppy cultivation and into cultivating alternative cash crops.
The British were working close with the U.S. DEA’s “Operation Containment” out of Kabul.
But the presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan did not result in the eradication of poppy cultivation as promised. Strangely enough it did exactly the opposite.
Surprisingly Afghan opium production started with the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Afghan Government in 1978 and grew steadily with the following civil war, the Russian invasion and the U.S.-backed religiousbased resistance.
In 2000, years after they captured Kabul, the Taliban banned opium production, diminishing Afghan opium output from about 76 percent of word production in 2000 to 6 percent in 2001.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime acknowledged that immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored.
Within a year of the U.S. invasion, Afghan opium output shot from 6 percent of world production in 2001, to 74 percent in 2002, 93 percent in 2006, 95 percent in 2007 and 94 percent in 2008.
On Sept. 15, 2008, the Drug Truth Network reported Afghan heroin output had increased a staggering 5,000 percent since the U.S. invasion 7 years prior.
It seems one of the objectives in Afghanistan was to restore the CIA-sponsored drug trade to its norms and re-establish control over smuggling routes.
In the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia from 1950 until 1976, smuggling opium was the route to provide funds to the Kuomintang forces. The operation from China and Burma to Bangkok, Thailand, was aided by the use of airplanes owned by a CIA front business, Air America.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops.
Gen. Manuel Noriega had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S., allowing him to continue drug-trafficking activities the CIA knew about since the 1960s.
When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented it. The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.
When CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA’s activities in Latin America. The CIA’s connections with Noriega became a public relations nightmare for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after allowing his drug operations to proceed for decades.
In 1996, Gary Webb wrote articles published in the San Jose Mercury News, investigating Nicaraguans linked to CIA-backed Contras.
Webb claimed the CIA was aware of cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S.
Although he suggested CIA involvement, he never claimed to have made a direct link between the CIA and the Contras.
Webb turned the articles into a book called, “Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion”
On Dec. 10, 2004, Webb reportedly committed suicide, shooting himself not once, but twice, in the head.
CIA Director John M. Deutch went to Los Angeles to oppose allegations raised by Webb’s articles only to be confronted by former Los Angeles Police officer Michael Ruppert who testified that he witnessed it.
Why would a government flood its own population with drugs is what we should be asking ourselves, and what does it win if we all lose?