Two Plus Two, Part 7

We continue with our Two Plus Two series; previous installments are at these links:

Two Plus Two, Part 1

Two Plus Two, Part 2

Two Plus Two, Part 3

Two Plus Two, Part 4

Two Plus Two, Part 5

Two Plus Two, Part 6

We begin with an article entitled McCAIN AND THE KLA CONNECTION by Justin Raimondo -- from February 25, 2000. I have reproduced the text in its entirety, with much of its formatting but not its links, and interspersed my comments.

George W. Bush has been taken out to the woodshed by the liberals for appearing on the stage at Bob Jones University – in this day and age, to even appear on a platform provided by a politically incorrect group or institution is enough to condemn a candidate to perdition. And the McCain campaign was quick to capitalize on it. But why isn't McCain subjected to the same scrutiny? Please direct your attention to the photo below: the caption informs us that McCain is speaking at "a pro-Kosovo, pro-McCain rally across the street from his New York City hotel Friday morning, Feb. 11, 2000. McCain is in New York for the day to attend fundraisers and to talk to the press before returning to South Carolina Friday night." But who is the man on the right, with the colorful KLA scarf and his big mouth wide open? The caption-writer is mute on this point, but to anyone who knows anything about New York's ethnic politics, the face is all-too-familiar: it is none other than former Republican Congressman Joe DioGuardi, now the loquacious leader of the Albanian-American Civic League (AACL) – a group that not only actively represents the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in America, but whose leader has become a spokesman for the most radical fringe elements of the KLA.

Here is an image from that article, showing the photo in question:



See also McCain's Ties to Islamic Terrorists -- and Heroin Traffickers?, Smuggler's Blues, Part 1, Smuggler's Blues, Part 2 and The Next Two Balkan Wars.

WHO IS JOE DIOGUARDI?

DioGuardi is an extremist who lost his seat in Congress because his growing preoccupation with creating a "Greater Albania" did not exactly fit in with the pothole-fixing skills that must be the first concern of New York City politicians. Most Albanian-Americans support independence for Kosovo, and look with disdain and bewilderment at the US government's official position that Kosovo is still an "autonomous" province of Yugoslavia. But DioGuardi goes one step – indeed, several steps – further, and envisions a "Greater Albania." Visitors to AACL's website are confronted with a map of this Albanian Empire, which, as Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute said in his testimony before Congress, illustrates "a breathtaking agenda," including as it does "Albania, Kosovo, western Macedonia (along with its capital, Skopje), southeastern Montenegro (along with its capital, Podgorica), northern Greece, and southern Serbia (north of Kosovo)." A comment found in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch newsletter on this outrageous map hit the nail on the head:

"When I first saw this map it struck a recollection of something I had seen before. It occurred to me that it is quite similar to one I have (printed by the State Department in 1947) of interim territorial arrangements during World War II. I can understand that there is an element of hyperbole in critics' calling NATO's air campaign "Nazi," but fail to see what interest the United States has in helping to restore the Nazi-imposed borders of 1943 or how this helps preserve European stability."

THE KLA: A SHORT HISTORY

It is well-known that the original straight-arm salute of the KLA was suppressed, by its CIA and German intelligence handlers, in favor of a less controversial American-style greeting. While one wing of the KLA looks to the old-fashioned Stalinism of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian Communist dictator who aided the early student organizations that made up the Albanian separatist movement, the other looks to the "Skanderberg Division" of the Nazi SS, Albanians recruited by the Germans to fight for Hitler's cause, for its political antecedents. DioGuardi has been a vigorous publicist on behalf of the KLA political commissar, Adem Demaci, a militant who spent years in Yugoslav prisons. Demaci denounced the Rambouillet agreement as a sellout and (along with DioGuardi) rejected all negotiations on principle. DioGuardi even wrote a letter congratulating his fellow extremist when Demaci was appointed chief of the KLA's political wing.

FOLLOW THAT GENIE!

Demaci, DioGuardi, and the KLA militants are now acting on their dream of a "Greater Albania": this is the meaning of recent events in Kosovo. Madeleine Albright is so frightened by the rising demands of the pan-Albanians that she made a special trip to Tirana to denounce the idea as "no more viable than that of a Greater Serbia." But the genie is already out of the bottle, and the question is: what will the next Administration do?

A GREATER ALBANIA

As the KLA conducts its reign of terror in Kosovo, driving out the Serbs and marching, in tens of thousands, on the northern city of Mitrovica in an effort to storm the last Serb bastion, John McCain is standing alongside a man who is the chief apologist, organizer, and fundraiser of the KLA in America, a man who once declared:

"It is unfortunate that misguided European politics, overly and unfairly influenced by Russia and Greece in the early part of the twentieth century, resulted in a partition of the Albanian nation so that more than half the Albanians in the Balkans live outside the state of Albania in hostile Slavic regimes, especially Serbia and Macedonia. . . . With UDBA in Belgrade and the Sigurimi in Tirana collaborating to buy, trick or kill those Albanians with democratic aspirations, it is no wonder that it has been extremely difficult for seven million. Albanians to organize themselves as a nation, or even politically within the five jurisdictions in which they reside. While there is some cooperation among political parties in certain areas and across borders, true democratic, independent-minded Albanian leadership has been lacking and this has contributed to the divisions, confusion, and betrayal of the Albanian cause in the Balkans and in America."

CONSPIRACY THEORY

How's that for a conspiracy theory? According to DioGuardi, all the nations of Europe conspired to keep his people disunited. Naturally it is assumed that every living ethnic Albanian must live in an Albanian state, since, in the neo-fascist ideology of the KLA, the State embodies the Race and must defend its interests irrespective of current national borders. And, oh yes, that's what we definitely need: more "cooperation among parties in certain areas and across borders," so as to spread the rabidly revanchist ideology of the KLA and set the Balkans aflame.

Here is Kosovo, populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, and now independent as of this year:



Greater Albania will mean a spread of the Balkan wars into nearby nations, specifically into those regions of neighboring nations populated by ethnic Albanians.



And, to be sure, ethnic Albanians are not the problem, any more than Americans are the problem because of criminals and terrorists in our midst. But, DioGuardi represents a violent, criminal element in ethnic Albanian circles, which, in turn, is closely tied in to Islamic extremists, including to Osama bin Laden -- I point this out frequently at posts on my blog.

THE DIOGUARDI-McCAIN CONNECTION

There they are, the two of them, DioGuardi and McCain, side by side: one who would carve an Albanian empire in the midst of the blood-soaked Balkans, and the other who would be President of the United States. It is a disturbing juxtaposition, to say the very least. For if we can accuse poor Dubya of endorsing the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Bob Jones fundamentalists simply by speaking at their auditorium, then what are we to make of would-be President John McCain appearing with a radical Albanian nationalist who sees not only Belgrade but also Skopje and Athens as the enemy? After all, this is perhaps the wrong signal to the Macedonians, who have so far enjoyed a fragile peace, and no doubt the Greeks, our NATO allies, would be less than pleased. And what of the Montenegrins, whose capital city DioGuardi and the Albanian lobby covet, and whose independence we are pledged to defend against the alleged threat posed by Milosevic? If Bush must be called to account for supposedly aligning himself with the forces of intolerance in the US, for the sin of appearing at Bob Jones U, then should we not call McCain to account for sharing the platform with a radical Albanian extremist and endangering the peace of Europe.

TURNING THE TABLES

Although the McCain campaign piously denied it, it has since come out that they were responsible for phone calls during the Michigan primary, run ostensibly by a group called "Catholic Voter Alert," which demanded to know why Bush had not disavowed the rhetoric of Bob Jones and his flock about the church being "a Satanic cult'! This from the campaign McCain piously described to his followers as "one you can be proud of"! Well, then, is it not time to turn the tables, and send out a "Voter Alert" demanding to know why McCain hasn't repudiated the rhetoric of Joe DioGuardi and his KLA friends who want to ignite the Balkan tinderbox with their crazed scheme to create an Albanian empire? Indeed, this is a lot fairer than the alleged Bush-Jones connection, because Bush has no history of anti-Catholicism – the news of his sudden conversion to the Jonesian doctrine that the Church is "the great Whore" foretold in the Bible came as a bit of a surprise. But McCain's apparent conversion to the cause of pan-Albanian nationalism is far more credible. For McCain was the most militant and visible supporter of the Kosovo war, who demanded Clinton pull out all the stops and send in the ground troops – even going so far as to introduce a Senate resolution that went down to a well-deserved defeat at the hands of his Republican colleagues.

THE KLA CANDIDATE

As General Wesley Clark, the US commander of our troops in Kosovo, calls on NATO and Washington to send in more troops – and I see, as I write this, that the Marines are practically on the way – the crisis in the Balkans is approaching critical mass. The NATO-crats are cranking up the propaganda machine, as the KLA gets ready to complete the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and proceed to the next stage of the ongoing struggle for a "Greater Albania." Ideologues like Adem Demaci, in Kosovo, and Joe Dioguardi, in America, want to drag the US into yet another Balkan war, to "finish the job" and completely dismember the remnants of Yugoslavia – using the US and NATO as both their sword and their shield. With a sympathetic President in the White House, who remembers how much money and political support was raised on that trip to New York at a crucial time in his campaign, DioGuardi and the KLA may yet see their expansionist dream realized. With Serbia finally subjugated, Albania would be free to expand, absorbing not only Kosovo but also destabilizing Macedonia and threatening Greece.

HOW MUCH?

The last GOP presidential candidate to cash in on the Albanian connection was Bob Dole: in May 1987, Dole and DioGuardi attended an Albanian-American fund-raiser in New York City that raised $1.2 million for Dole's campaign and $50,000 for DioGuardi's, according to journalist Diana Johnstone and researcher Benjamin Works. The caption accompanying the above photo says McCain was in New York doing some fundraising, and it is fair to ask: how much money did he get from the Albanian lobby? As the great "reform" candidate who denounces the influence of "special interests" and the power of money in politics, McCain had better tell us exactly how much the Albanian lobby has thrown his way – and to what effect. Of all the lobbyists in Washington, it is the "special interests" represented by the agents of foreign powers that pose the greatest threat to the integrity of the Presidency. Joe DioGuardi, rabid Albanian nationalist and chief American apologist for the drug-connected totalitarians of the KLA, has spread the money from his political action committees far and wide, and no doubt McCain is also the recipient of his largess – but at what price to the American people? The McCain campaign must immediately release the figures, and give us some "straight talk" about the KLA-McCain connection: how much did they get-and in return for what? The American people have a right to know how many American soldiers will be put at risk in the Balkans in the service of paying off President McCain's political debts.

ALBANIAN PANDERFEST

Republicans are screaming about the panderfest presided over by the Reverend Al Sharpton, at which Al Gore and Bill Bradley outdid each other in denouncing "white skin privilege," but what about McCain's panderfest with the Albanian warmongers, who want to drag the US even deeper into the Balkan quagmire? At least Sharpton isn't demanding that the lives of American soldiers be put at risk.

THE BUCHANAN FACTOR

Naturally the American media, which made itself into the willing instrument of the War Party during the Kosovo conflict, is reluctant to uncover the fact of McCain’s connection to Albanian extremists. The inability or unwillingness of the Bush campaign to call McCain to account on this question is due in large part to its own commitment to the Albanian lobby; their foreign policy advisor, Richard Perle, was also an advisor to the Bosnian Muslims, who enthusiastically supported the Kosovo war. The only major candidate who has made opposition to the Kosovo war – and opposition to the influence of foreign lobbyists – a campaign issue has been Patrick J. Buchanan, the likely Reform Party candidate. Buchanan is the specter that is haunting this primary season, with everyone and his brother claiming the mantle of "reform" – but scurrying away from the vital foreign policy issue, which only Buchanan has addressed. If McCain, the would-be conqueror of the Balkans, is the GOP nominee, then the Republicans, independents, and Democrats who opposed that war – and are horrified by its frightening results – will be driven into the Reform Party column. Combined with the general distaste for McCain among conservatives, this is the one factor that those who prate about the "electability" of the Warrior Candidate never discuss. Once again, the Bush people are constrained from making their best argument against McCain, this time for fear of breaking the embargo on all discussion of Buchanan and Reform as viable alternatives. The impotence of the Bush campaign in the face of the McCain insurgency is a function not only of the shortcomings of their candidate, but of the internationalism of his Establishment foreign policy advisors and their instinctive fear of the Right. And that, in the end, will be their undoing.

That was 2000 -- now it is 2008.

If elected, McCain's foreign policy will be subservient to the interests of those who traffic in heroin, arms, women for forced prostitution, nuclear secrets, and any other contraband-du-jour -- McCain's foreign policy will mean supporting close allies of Osama bin Laden in the Balkans.

We see McCain, because of his military experience and status as a war hero due to his time in captivity in Vietnam, as stronger in the "War on Terror" -- but long before there was a "War on Terror", McCain very knowingly sold his country out to the very terrorists against whom our troops now fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, a vote for Obama is a vote for peace? Not exactly, and for a variety of reasons. As we have seen in previous posts in this series, and as we shall see again -- very soon, because the election is just over two weeks away! -- Obama's foreign policy will be steered by the very same organized crime faction that seeks to carve an organized crime and militant Islamic extremist empire in the Balkans.

Stay tuned, as we look again at Obama's running mate, Senator Biden.

Smackdown, Part 1

I begin with an article on a subject that an email tipster alerted me to, NATO agrees on Afghan drug role for military, from October 10, 2008:

BUDAPEST, Hungary - NATO defense ministers Friday authorized their troops in Afghanistan to attack drug barons blamed for pumping up to US$100 million (euro74 million) a year into the coffers of resurgent Taliban fighters.

Sound promising?

Ah, but longtime readers of my blog are aware of the importance of heroin in Afghanistan -- and thus, they know that this is not the beginning of the story, and neither will it be the end.

Before we continue with this, perhaps we should review some history. Though I have written extensively about this in the past, I will nevertheless paint the picture again in this series of posts.

I present material from an article that appeared on October 9, 2008, entitled U.S. Study Warns of Crisis in Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON -- A draft report by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by corruption within President Hamid Karzai's government and by an increase in attacks by militants operating from Pakistan, the Times said, citing U.S. officials familiar with the document.

There are two problems. One is that Pakistan is a sanctuary for the militants; the other is that of corruption in the Kabul government.

In reviewing my Genesis series, it is not surprising that Pakistan is a sanctuary for the militants; indeed, as I often pointed out during the Genesis posts, it sure looked like Pakistan was behind the rise of the Taliban. No wonder the Taliban would flee to the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and no wonder Islamabad has been unable to root them out, and unwilling to give the US permission to enter Pakistani territory to do so.

Is it not interesting that one thing Benazir Bhutto was proposing was to get the militants out of the border area, without US help if possible, but with US help if necessary? And, of course, look what happened to her!

Then, there's the corruption in the Kabul government.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is set to be finished after the November elections and will be the most comprehensive U.S. assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan, the paper said.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants from neighboring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials said.

The report cites gains in the building of Afghanistan's national army. But officials said it also laid out in stark terms what it described as the destabilizing impact of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy.

Back now to NATO agrees on Afghan drug role for military from October 10, 2008:

"With regard to counter-narcotics ... ISAF can act in concert with the Afghans against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai, referring to the NATO force.

The United States has pushed for NATO's 50,000 troops to take on a counter-narcotics role to hit back at the Taliban, whose increasing attacks have cast doubt on the prospects of a Western military victory in Afghanistan.

However, Germany, Spain and others were wary and their doubts led to NATO imposing conditions on the anti-drug mandate for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Troops will only be able to act against drug facilities if authorized by their own governments; only drug producers deemed to be supporting the insurgency will be targeted; and the operation must be designed to be temporary — lasting only until the Afghan security forces are deemed able to take on the task.

So, what is going on here?

We now begin with a translation by Ferghana.Ru of an article that originally appeared in Russian, entitled US AF serving Afghani drug dealers, from November, 2007; keep in mind that, as a translation by a non-native speaker of English, it reads just a little rough in places:

Afghani drugs are as much a pressing problem of the international community as the global warming is. Existence of the problem is recognized by everybody but a solution to it is not known. An international conference on the subject took place in Kabul in late October. According to the UN report presented there, Afghani opium reaching the international market accounts 93% of the global production. Fifty percent of Afghani drugs is produced in Gilmand on the border with Pakistan, a province where British troops are quartered.

Persuading the House of Commons to send British troops to Helmand last year [as this is a 2007 article, that would be 2006 -- YD], Premier Tony Blair capitalized on the danger to Great Britain posed by Afghani heroin. Paradoxically as it is, British servicemen and their American colleagues have found themselves now dragged into the international mafia that buys drugs made in Afghanistan and smuggles them abroad.

The information this publication is based on came from various Afghani sources that cannot be identified for quite understandable reasons. All the same, indirect evidence indicates that the Western military is involved in traffic. An operation against poppy plantations was to take place in several southern and southeastern provinces of Afghanistan this May (they were to be sprayed with defoliants). Sources in administration of Kandahar and Jalalabad say, however, that commanders of the US and British contingents in these provinces made a pact with the Afghanis and cancelled the operation.

Did you catch that? "[I]ndirect evidence indicates that the Western military is involved in traffic."

Of course, since then, there has been more of an outcry on the part of the Russian Federation regarding the involvement of the US military in the heroin trade.

Sources point out that interests of the Western military involved in trafficking out of Afghanistan (usually by US military aviation) coincide with interests of Afghani chieftains who control poppy fields. Afghani officials say that 85% of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation.

Again, that was a report from a year ago: "Afghani officials say that 85% of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation."

There are several ways of shipping drugs abroad. Some sources maintain that the chain begins with civilian salesmen - usually Americans acting under the cover of all sorts of non-governmental organizations and security firms. They buy "goods" from Afghani wholesale dealers and take them to military bases (usually the airfield in Kandahar). A well-informed source in Afghani security structures claims in the meantime that the American military never deals with Western civilian structures and works with local Afghani officials directly. It is these officials who deal with field commanders, from Taliban more often than not, who are in charge of drug production. The Talibs control bank accounts money is transacted to in all sorts of devious ways via the Afghanis living in the United States and West Europe.

As a matter of fact, money is not the only commodity drugs are paid with. Weapons will do too. Afghani sources claim that drugs-for-weapons barter deals with the Talibs are widely used. (One cannot help recalling the "deals" between our servicemen and the mujahedin during Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.) It may be added that the mujahedin nowadays get weapons from the northern provinces to which the merchandise is smuggled in the first place from Asian states. Insiders say that a great deal of merchandise passes via Shurtepa, a settlement on the Afghani-Turkmen border. Insiders say that weapons and munitions are ferried to the Taliban-controlled provinces of Afghanistan by American or British armored vehicles.

Does this ring any bells?



From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: Can you elaborate here on what countries you mean?

SE: It's interesting, in one of my interviews, they say "Turkish countries," but I believe they meant Turkic countries – that is, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of these countries play a big part in the sort of things I have been talking about.

CD: What, you mean drug-smuggling?

SE: Among other things. Yes, that is a major part of it. It's amazing that in this whole "war on terror" thing, no one ever talks about these issues. No one asks questions about these countries – questions like, "OK, how much of their GDP depends on drugs?"

CD: But of course, you're not implying...

SE: And then to compare that little survey with what countries we've been putting military bases in --

And, it's not just today's fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban; the same connections to corrupt US officials permitted 9/11 to occur (so it could be used as cover for a bigger crime).

From State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade -- FBI Whistleblower by Fintan Dunne, June 7, 2004:

Because of a provisional gag order issued by Judge Reggie B. Walton which prohibits revealing specific details, Edmonds can only paint a picture in the broadest of brush strokes.

But her measured words hint at politically explosive connections between criminal drug/intelligence networks, and the 9/11 attacks.

"You have [a] network of people who obtain certain information and they take it out and sell it to... whomever would be the highest bidder. Then you have people who would be bringing into the country narcotics from the East, and their connections. [It] is only then that you really see the big picture."

"And you see certain semi-legitimate organizations that may very well have a legit front, but with very criminal illegitimate activities -- who start coming at you from these investigations."

"And the picture becomes, actually, very clear. Crystal clear."

From 'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes' by Andrew Buncombe; published on Friday, April 2, 2004 by the Independent/UK:

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used -- but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities -- with skyscrapers."

[snip]

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission -- 90 per cent of it -- related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

For a wild ride, stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as this series continues!

Uighuristan, Part 4

In a decade-old report entitled The World Geopolitics of Drugs, 1998/1999 we get a glimpse of a problem which has now engulfed Central Asia, and which is now becoming a major issue throughout the Eurasian landmass, and into Africa and the Americas: heroin and heroin trafficking from Afghanistan and adjacent parts of neighboring countries.

On page 61, the report addresses growing heroin demand in China:

Large Increase in Heroin Demand

In 1999, police and customs seized 2.5 tons of heroin more than in the previous year. The opiate is now used by all social groups throughout the country, but especially in the southern provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong, and in the autonomous Uighur region, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu of the northwest. While about 70% of the heroin consumer market is supplied from Yunnan, the rest comes from the Golden Crescent. Well-structured networks acting on behalf of secret societies -- that grew back to prominence during the 1990's -- import the opiate.

Keep in mind that the figure of 70% from Yunnan means that 30% came from the Golden Crescent -- Afghanistan, etc. -- and that these figures are from ten years ago, before the surge in heroin production in Afghanistan. The resulting surge in Afghan heroin meant a surge in quality and availability, as well, and a decline in prices -- all making for a seizure of market share by those who deal Afghan heroin in the worldwide heroin trade.

There are three main types of mafia gangs involved in the marketing of heroin. One is Chinese and operates mainly in southern China. The other two types are made up of ethnic-Huis and Uighurs involved in heroin distribution in Yunnan and the north of China. They supply the towns of Lanzhu in Gansu Province and Tongxin and Weizhu in Ningxia province. The Uighur mafia holds a monopoly over the drug trade in Beijing and Canton. There is a fourth type of network, although it is not as strong. It is made up of Afghan and Pakistani smugglers operating from the Karakorum Pass in Pakistan and the Wajan corridor on the China-Afghanistan border (these latter rarely smuggle more than one kilogram at a time). In 1998 and 1999 several Pakistanis have been executed in Xinjiang Province after being found guilty of drug trafficking.

Huis, like Uighurs, are a Muslim people in the PRC.

It is interesting that ten years ago, the Uighur mafia monopolized the drug trade in the PRC's capital. It is also interesting that even then, there was activity along the Afghanistan border with Afghan and Pakistani traffickers.

Of course, with the spread of heroin, there is also a spread of HIV and AIDS associated with the use of needles, so much so that a report entitled Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection rates and heroin trafficking: fearful symmetries was written, in which the heroin trafficking could be charted by studying the genetic print of the HIV in its associated users in China.

There is currently an AIDS epidemic in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

We now review Tackling China's quiet killer: Feature on the AIDS epidemic in China's Xinjiang province:

First Broadcast 20/05/2007

China's remote north-western province of Xinjiang is a place rarely seen by the outside world.

Foreign media is restricted from reporting freely there, due to sensitivities over the ethnic Uighur people - some of whom the Chinese government accuses of being terrorists fighting for an independent state.

But right now, Xinjiang has a more urgent problem. With its population of 20 million, the region has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in China.

A number of international organisations have teamed up with the regional government to try to reverse the trend.

Our China correspondent, Charlotte Glennie, reports.

Charlotte Glennie, China correspondent: Geographically isolated, culturally unique, Xinjiang is China's last frontier to central Asia. It's the traditional home of the Uighur people, devoted Muslims who descend from the Turks.

Today, they're fighting a desperate battle. Xinjiang is a region being ravaged by HIV/AIDS. There are more than 10,000 registered HIV cases here, and it's estimated the real number of infections could be as many as six times higher.

Dr Mai Mai Ti Ming, director general, Xinjiang Health Bureau (translated): Xinjiang's first HIV/AIDS patient was found in 1995. The 12 years since then, the number of HIV/AIDS patients has increased every year. It's already threatened people's health and life in Xinjiang.

It endangers social progress. It is the biggest public health problem and the biggest social problem.

Charlotte Glennie: Twenty-five-year-old Shmxunir was diagnosed HIV-positive a year ago. Her four-year-old daughter has AIDS.

Shmxunir, HIV sufferer and community educator (translated): I took her to a hospital last October to treat her lung. She was extremely skinny. The doctor told me to take her to another hospital. They couldn't cure her. There was no medicine for children to treat HIV in this area. I was lost and I had no choice. The doctor said they had no choice either.

Charlotte Glennie: Eventually Shmxunir got her daughter the treatment she needed.

"It endangers social progress. It is the biggest public health problem and the biggest social problem."

Shmxunir (translated): When she started taking the medicine, she couldn't stand and couldn't walk. She had to lie in bed and also she couldn't talk. Her situation was not good, but she is gradually recovering.

Charlotte Glennie: Mother and daughter had contracted HIV from Shmxunir's husband, a heroin injector, now dead. Shmxunir says in her home village there's such stigma surrounding AIDS that's she has not told anyone except her mother what her daughter is suffering from.

Shmxunir (translated): I don't think too much about myself, but whenever I think of my daughter, I feel great pain.

Charlotte Glennie: In the far north-west of Xinjiang, the city of Yining has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS per capita in all China.

Out of a population of 42,000, 5,600 are registered HIV-positive. Most victims are male, aged between 20 and 45. More than 90 per cent of infections were passed on by people sharing needles to inject heroin, which comes from central Asia.

Yining City is just 90 kilometres from Kazakhstan, and the flow of heroin across the border into here is now higher than ever. Xinjiang has become not only a major thoroughfare for drug traffickers, but also a region of massive drug consumption.

The same story could be written about other cities in the region, and has been written about Kashgar.



The heroin isn't just from Afghanistan -- it is from elsewhere in Central Asia, as well.

Many of the people using and abusing heroin here are society's most vulnerable. Poverty-stricken, jobless and often demoralised ethnic Uighurs.

Nine out of 10 of Yining's HIV/AIDS cases are among Uighur people. Large scale government supported migration of Han Chinese people to Xinjiang means indigenous Uighurs are now outnumbered.

Rights groups say Uighurs are subject to brutal civil and political rights violations, and denied access to employment, schooling and government services.

Shmxunir says her husband turned to drugs because of a lack of opportunity.

Although the oil rush has brought an economic rush to the XUAR, not everyone benefits.



It seems ethnic Han Chinese, relocated from elsewhere in the PRC, are the main beneficiaries of the economic upturn.



The Uighur people, it seems, are the targets of other Chinese Communist plans.

From Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, an April, 2005, Human Rights Watch report:

Documents obtained and interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch reveal a multitiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang’s Uighurs. At its most extreme, peaceful activists who practice their religion in a manner deemed unacceptable by state authorities or Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are arrested, tortured, and at times executed. The harshest punishments are meted out to those accused of involvement in separatist activity, which is increasingly equated by officials with "terrorism." Because of fears in Beijing of the power of separatist messages, independent religious activity or dissent is at times arbitrarily equated with a breach of state security, a serious crime in China and one that is frequently prosecuted.

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as Uighuristan continues!

The Sword of Allah, Part 7

In previous posts in this series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), we saw how opiate production is not being effectively dealt with in Afghanistan, despite the fact that narcotics trafficking helps arm our enemies in the "War on Terror". The major reason for this given in this series is corruption in Afghanistan, although any frequent reader of my blog knows that corruption in Washington, D.C., is a major factor, as well.

In a companion series, Taking Care of Business, we also take a look at another aspect of corruption in government, as major players in the arms industry are in bed with those who are in bed with terrorists.

While the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other mujahideen are battling American, British, Afghan and other allied troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere, high enough up the ladder leaders on both sides are making a great deal of money dealing in narcotics, arms, nuclear secrets, sex slaves, and a variety of other commodities.

But, what does all this mean for people on the streets of infidel countries?



In a short article that was published on March 7, 2008, entitled Afghan heroin surging into Australia: Customs, we begin to get an idea of the impact of the narcotics trafficking on Australia (notice the new label).

Authorities are again concerned about a surge in the amount of pure, cheap heroin coming into Australia.

A confidential Customs report seen by ABC TV's Lateline program shows concerns by Australian agencies about heroin from Afghanistan.

Victorian Police Drug Squad head Detective Inspector Steve Smith says traditional criminal syndicates are still heavily involved in the importation of heroin.

"I'm also aware of data that indicates the purity of heroin that's available on the streets of Melbourne at the moment has increased, and that the price of heroin that is available has decreased, which may be indicative of the fact that there's more around," he said.

Melbourne's chief ambulance officer Alan Eade backs the concerns of police.

He says fatal heroin overdoses had decreased, but that is changing now.

"Of late, [heroin overdoses are] slowly starting to creep back up," he said.

"Whether that's availability, or just the swinging trend in drug use, I'm not sure why."

As the price comes down, more heroin can be bought; also, as the purity increases, the bang for each dose of smack increases. These two trends combine to have a great impact on the street, as more people can get more of a fix for the same amount of money.

But, an unexpected rise in heroin quality also tends to produce a rise in deaths due to overdoses, as heroin users taking the same amount they always take suddenly find themselves shooting up more potency. According to the article, Australia was just beginning to see this early this spring, although according to this next article, dated only several days later, it sounds like the increase in deaths was already more noticeable; Afghan brown heroin hits Sydney streets by John Kidman, March 16, 2008:

BROWN heroin from the opium fields of Afghanistan has made its way onto Sydney's streets for the first time.

The director of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre Dr Ingrid van Beek said some use of brown heroin had been seen at the centre sporadically over the past nine months.

Inner-city heroin overdoses are also on the rise, with about one a day coming into the emergency department at St Vincent's Hospital. Experts are unclear why overdoses have increased.

Dr van Beek said there was sometimes confusion between acidic impure white heroin, which appeared brown in colour, and genuine Afghan heroin. But she said the limited demand for acidifiers to use with the drug indicated it was brown heroin.

Dr van Beek said the presence of Afghan heroin in Australia did not mean it was likely to "flood" the local market - the Australian market is simply too small and too far from the Middle East. And its arrival has not been linked to any surge in use, following a seven-year "drought" in which the common Asian strain of the deadly narcotic was superseded by ice.

The Medically Supervised Injecting Centre reports heroin use among its clients is generally at an all-time low. However, inner-city heroin overdoses are inexplicably on the rise, says Dr Gordian Fulde from St Vincent's Hospital's emergency department.

"Whereas we were seeing virtually none up until 18 months ago, we are now receiving about one overdose a day," Dr Fulde said. "It's not an 'Oh my God, it's the end of the world'-type thing at this stage. It's early days and the numbers are still small. I can't give you a trail of how or where or why but it's happening and it's not going away."

The spike is not matched in Sydney's south-west, where overdoses in and around Cabramatta were once common but are now "virtually unseen", said Liverpool Hospital's emergency director, Dr Richard Cracknell.

Australia-wide, the price of heroin is reportedly falling while customs and police seizures rose 30 per cent between 2006 and last year.

Perhaps not "flood" the market, but perhaps take market share from competitors, while encouraging new users through low prices?

In an article from February 8, 2008, AFGHANISTAN: Booming heroin crop finding its way to Australian streets, we get more information:

A big increase in Afghanistan's heroin crop is finding its way onto Australian streets. Afghan Brown heroin used to be rare in Australia, and local heroin users preferred the more highly refined product from south-east Asia. But a boom in opium production has made Afghanistan a major exporter and Australia a prime target.

Presenter: Michael Edwards

Speakers: Clive Williams, Terrorism and security analyst from the Australian National University; Gideon Warhaft from the New South Wales Users and AIDS Association; Annie Madden from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghan opium production is booming. It now accounts for 90 per cent of the world's supply. And much of this is produced in areas controlled by the Taliban.

Terrorism expert Clive Williams from Macquarie University says Afghanistan, opium and its eventual product heroin, are almost a natural fit.

CLIVE WILLIAMS: I think it's probably a lot to do with the difficulty of the environment there and there is no other crop that pays as well as growing opium.

And of course, there's always been a ready market both for exporting through Pakistan, and north through central Asia, which finds its way to Europe and Russia.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: And it appears some of this so-called Afghan Brown heroin is reaching Australia.

Traditionally, Australian heroin users preferred so-called China White heroin which is imported from south-east Asia. But now drug users' groups say there is an unprecedented shift towards Afghan Brown heroin in some parts of the country.

Annie Madden is from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League.

ANNIE MADDEN: The reports we have been getting have been coming out of western Sydney and some parts of Adelaide. One of the factors that has changed recently, if you like, is that there is certainly evidence that the production of Afghan heroin has hugely increased over the last 12 months, 18 months.

And obviously that massive increase in production of brown heroin is going to be finding its way, has been finding its way and will continue to find its way into the world markets. And Australia could well be a new market for that form of heroin.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Gideon Warhaft is from the New South Wales Users and Aids Association.

He says presently on the streets of Sydney, users are finding it easier to get brown heroin rather than China White.

GIDEON WARHAFT: It is certainly possible, given you know, the huge yields of opium and heroin in Afghanistan over the last couple of years that people have decided to take advantage of that and have started importing Afghan heroin.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: And there are more differences to Afghan Brown than just its country of origin. Compared to south-east Asian China White heroin, Afghan Brown is unrefined and in many parts of the world it is smoked rather than injected.

But Annie Madden says some users do inject it and this can lead to health problems.

ANNIE MADDEN: If you do inject, it does tend to lead to more vein damage and abscesses and those sorts of things, because it is a more complex process to mix it into a solution suitable for injecting.

A key point is made in the above passage, that perhaps the market is beginning to favor Afghan heroin over other varieties. Recall what we learned in The Heroin Lobby, Part 3:

Just to get an idea of what we are talking about, the following is from the UN World Drug Report 2007. Heroin seizures worldwide are going way up,



and the price of heroin has come way down!



How come that happens with heroin, and not with gasoline?

This is not just an adult problem; as this graph shows, there has been an increase in heroin use in American high schools, including a spike in 2000:



On average, heroin use in American high schools has roughly doubled since American foreign policy has become subservient to the heroin lobby.

And, as I document in Smuggler's Blues, Part 1 and Smuggler's Blues, Part 2, this heroin is unusually pure and high quality; its purity and quality are catching drug users off-guard, causing a rise in overdoses and deaths.

As this last quoted passage alludes to, it isn't just in Australia that this increased flow of high quality heroin is washing ashore; it's getting very popular among middle class American teenagers, too.

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as The Sword of Allah continues!

The Sword of Allah, Part 2

We pick up where we left off at the end of Part 1 reviewing Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAid) was also under fire — particularly from Congress — for not providing better alternative crops for farmers. USAid had distributed seed and fertilizer to most of Afghanistan, but more comprehensive agricultural programs were slow to start in parts of the country. The USAid officers in Kabul were competent and committed, but they had already lost several workers to insurgent attacks, and were understandably reluctant to go into Taliban territory to implement their programs.

The Department of Justice had just completed an effort to open the Afghan anti-narcotics court, so capacity to prosecute was initially low. Justice in Afghanistan was administered unevenly by tribes, religious leaders and poorly paid, highly corruptible judges. In the rare cases in which drug traffickers were convicted, they often walked in the front door of a prison, paid a bribe and walked out the back door. We received dozens of reports to this effect.

And then there was the problem of the Afghan National Police. The Pentagon frequently proclaimed that the Afghan National Army (which the Pentagon trained) was performing wonderfully, but that the police (trained mainly by the Germans and the State Department) were not. A respected American general in Afghanistan, however, confided to me that the army was not doing well, either; that the original plan for training the army was flimsy and underfinanced; and that, consequently, they were using police to fill holes in the army mission. Thrust into a military role, unprepared police lost their lives trying to hold territory in dangerous areas.

There was no coherent strategy to resolve these issues among the U.S. agencies and the Afghan government. When I asked career officers at the State Department for the interagency strategy for Afghan counternarcotics, they produced the same charts I used to brief the cabinet in Washington months before. "There is no written strategy," they confessed.

That passage says a lot.

In that kind of a chaotic situation, the only Afghans who are going to thrive are the narcotraffickers -- at least they are both motivated and organized.

As big as these challenges were, there were even bigger ones. A lot of intelligence — much of it unclassified and possible to discuss here — indicated that senior Afghan officials were deeply involved in the narcotics trade. Narco-traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government. The attorney general, Abdul Jabbar Sabit, a fiery Pashtun who had begun a self-described "jihad against corruption," told me and other American officials that he had a list of more than 20 senior Afghan officials who were deeply corrupt — some tied to the narcotics trade. He added that President Karzai — also a Pashtun — had directed him, for political reasons, not to prosecute any of these people. (On July 16 of this year, Karzai dismissed Sabit after Sabit announced his candidacy for president. Karzai's office said Sabit's candidacy violated laws against political activity by officials. Sabit told a press conference that Karzai "has never been able to tolerate rivals.")

An Afghan government official begins "jihad against corruption" and gets trumped by Karzai.

Is this not reminiscent of what Sibel Edmonds said in 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso, August 15, 2005?

SE: In some cases where the FBI stumbles upon evidence of high-level officials being involved in drug-smuggling, they're even prevented from sharing it with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency]. The Department of State just comes in and says, "Leave it."

You know, it's funny, after 9/11, the common criticism was that there was "no information-sharing" between the FBI, CIA, and the like, and this is why the terrorists pulled it off -- as if we didn't want to cooperate. No information-sharing? That's the biggest BS I ever heard!

Returning to Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

A nearly equal challenge in 2006 was the lack of resolve in the international community. Although Britain's foreign office strongly backed antinarcotics efforts (with the exception of aerial eradication), the British military were even more hostile to the antidrug mission than the U.S. military. British forces — centered in Helmand — actually issued leaflets and bought radio advertisements telling the local criminals that the British military was not part of the anti-poppy effort. I had to fly to Brussels and show one of these leaflets to the supreme allied commander in Europe, who oversees Afghan operations for NATO, to have this counterproductive information campaign stopped. It was a small victory; the truth was that many of our allies in the International Security Assistance Force were lukewarm on antidrug operations, and most were openly hostile to aerial eradication.

Nonetheless, throughout 2006 and into 2007 there were positive developments (although the Pentagon did not supply the helicopters to the D.E.A. until early 2008). The D.E.A. was training special Afghan narcotics units, while the Pentagon began to train Afghan pilots for drug operations. We put together educational teams that convened effective antidrug meetings in the more stable northern provinces. We used manual eradication to eliminate about 10 percent of the crop. In some provinces with little insurgent activity, the eradication numbers reached the 20 percent threshold — a level that drug experts see as a tipping point in eradication — and poppy cultivation all but disappeared in those areas by 2007. And the Department of Justice got the counternarcotics tribunal to process hundreds of midlevel cases.

By late 2006, however, we had startling new information: despite some successes, poppy cultivation over all would grow by about 17 percent in 2007 and would be increasingly concentrated in the south of the country, where the insurgency was the strongest and the farmers were the wealthiest. The poorest farmers of Afghanistan — those who lived in the north, east and center of the country — were taking advantage of antidrug programs and turning away from poppy cultivation in large numbers. The south was going in the opposite direction, and the Taliban were now financing the insurgency there with drug money — just as Patterson predicted.

In late January 2007, there was an urgent U.S. cabinet meeting to discuss the situation. The attendees agreed that the deputy secretary of state John Negroponte and John Walters, the drug czar, would oversee the development of the first interagency counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan. They asked me to coordinate the effort, and, after Patterson’s intervention, I was promoted to ambassadorial rank. We began the effort with a briefing for Negroponte, Walters, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and several senior Pentagon officials. We displayed a map showing how poppy cultivation was becoming limited to the south, more associated with the insurgency and disassociated from poverty. The Pentagon chafed at the briefing because it reflected a new reality: narcotics were becoming less a problem of humanitarian assistance and more a problem of insurgency and war.

Negroponte -- doesn't he have a background working in a counterinsurgent/counternarcotics environment?

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime was arriving at the same conclusion. Later that year, they issued a report linking the drug trade to the insurgency and made a controversial statement: "Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is no longer associated with poverty — quite the opposite." The office convincingly demonstrated that poor farmers were abandoning the crop and that poppy growth was largely confined to some of the wealthiest parts of Afghanistan. The report recommended that eradication efforts be pursued "more honestly and more vigorously," along with stronger anticorruption measures. Earlier this year, the U.N. published an even more detailed paper titled "Is Poverty Driving the Afghan Opium Boom?" It rejected the idea that farmers would starve without the poppy, concluding that "poverty does not appear to have been the main driving factor in the expansion of opium poppy cultivation in recent years."

The U.N. reports shattered the myth that poppies are grown by destitute farmers who have no other source of income. They demonstrated that approximately 80 percent of the land under poppy cultivation in the south had been planted with it only in the last two years. It was not a matter of "tradition," and these farmers did not need an alternative livelihood. They had abandoned their previous livelihoods — mainly vegetables, cotton and wheat (which was in severely short supply) — to take advantage of the security vacuum to grow a more profitable crop: opium.

The relatively rich farmers began to grow poppies to make more money -- and the business was supporting our enemy.

Heroin -- the sword of Allah!

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as the series continues!

The Sword of Allah, Part 1

I begin this series by beginning a review of Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? by THOMAS SCHWEICH, published July 27, 2008. The NYT article has many links which I did not reproduce.

On March 1, 2006, I met Hamid Karzai for the first time. It was a clear, crisp day in Kabul. The Afghan president joined President and Mrs. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ronald Neumann to dedicate the new United States Embassy. He thanked the American people for all they had done for Afghanistan. I was a senior counternarcotics official recently arrived in a country that supplied 90 percent of the world's heroin. I took to heart Karzai's strong statements against the Afghan drug trade. That was my first mistake.

Over the next two years I would discover how deeply the Afghan government was involved in protecting the opium trade — by shielding it from American-designed policies. While it is true that Karzai's Taliban enemies finance themselves from the drug trade, so do many of his supporters. At the same time, some of our NATO allies have resisted the anti-opium offensive, as has our own Defense Department, which tends to see counternarcotics as other people's business to be settled once the war-fighting is over. The trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs — and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power.

I pause with the article for some quotes from Sibel Edmonds. From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: Can you elaborate here on what countries you mean?

SE: It's interesting, in one of my interviews, they say "Turkish countries," but I believe they meant Turkic countries – that is, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of these countries play a big part in the sort of things I have been talking about.

CD: What, you mean drug-smuggling?

SE: Among other things. Yes, that is a major part of it. It's amazing that in this whole "war on terror" thing, no one ever talks about these issues. No one asks questions about these countries – questions like, "OK, how much of their GDP depends on drugs?"

CD: But of course, you're not implying...

SE: And then to compare that little survey with what countries we've been putting military bases in --

Returning now to Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

It wasn't supposed to be like this. When I attended an Afghanistan briefing for Anne Patterson on Dec. 1, 2005, soon after she became assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law-enforcement affairs, she turned to me with her characteristic smile and said, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" We had just learned that in the two previous months Afghan farmers had planted almost 60 percent more poppy than the year before, for a total of 165,000 hectares (637 square miles). The 2006 harvest would be the biggest narco-crop in history. That was the challenge we faced. Patterson — already a three-time ambassador — made me her deputy at the law-enforcement bureau, which has anti-crime programs in dozens of countries.

An image from the UN World Drug Report for 2007 (index of UN WDR's) helps tell the story:



Continuing with Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

At the beginning of 2006, I went to the high-profile London Conference on Afghanistan. It was a grand event mired in deception, at least with respect to the drug situation. Everyone from the Afghan delegation and most in the international community knew that poppy cultivation and heroin production would increase significantly in 2006. But the delegates to the London Conference instead dwelled on the 2005 harvest, which was lower than that of 2004, principally because of poor weather and market manipulation by drug lords like Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, who had been governor of the heroin capital of the world — Helmand Province — and then a member of Afghanistan's Parliament. So the Afghans congratulated themselves on their tremendous success in fighting drugs even as everyone knew the problem was worse than ever.

More images from the UN World Drug Report for 2007:







Continuing with Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

About three months later, after meeting with local officials in Helmand — my helicopter touched down in the middle of a poppy field — I went to the White House to brief Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others on the expanding opium problem. I advocated a policy replicating what had worked in other countries: public education about the evils of heroin and the illegality of cultivating poppies; alternative crops; eradication of poppy fields; interdiction of drug shipments and arrest of traffickers; and improvements to the judicial system.

I emphasized at this and subsequent meetings that crop eradication, although claiming less than a third of the $500 million budgeted for Afghan counternarcotics, was the most controversial part of the program. But because no other crop came even close to the value of poppies, we needed the threat of eradication to force farmers to accept less-lucrative alternatives. (Eradication was an essential component of successful anti-poppy efforts in Guatemala, Southeast Asia and Pakistan.) The most effective method of eradication was the use of herbicides delivered by crop-dusters. But Karzai had long opposed aerial eradication, saying it would be misunderstood as some sort of poison coming from the sky. He claimed to fear that aerial eradication would result in an uprising that would cause him to lose power. We found this argument perplexing because aerial eradication was used in rural areas of other poor countries without a significant popular backlash. The chemical used, glyphosate, was a weed killer used all over the United States, Europe and even Afghanistan. (Drug lords use it in their gardens in Kabul.) There were volumes of evidence demonstrating that it was harmless to humans and became inert when it hit the ground. My assistant at the time was a Georgia farmer, and he told me that his father mixed glyphosate with his hands before applying it to their orchards.

Nonetheless, Karzai opposed it, and we at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs went along. We financed ground-based eradication instead: police using tractors and weed-whackers to destroy the fields of farmers who refused to plant alternative crops. Ground-based eradication was inefficient, costly, dangerous and more subject to corrupt dealings among local officials than aerial eradication. But it was our only option.

Yet I continued to press for aerial eradication and a greater commitment to providing security for eradicators. Rumsfeld was already in political trouble, so when he started to resist my points, Rice quickly and easily shut him down. The briefing at the White House was well received by Rice and the others present. White House staff members also made clear to me that Bush continued to be "a big fan of aerial eradication."

The vice president made only one comment: "You got a tough job."

Even before she got to the bureau of international narcotics, Anne Patterson knew that the Pentagon was hostile to the antidrug mission. A couple of weeks into the job, she got the story firsthand from Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who commanded all U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He made it clear: drugs are bad, but his orders were that drugs were not a priority of the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Patterson explained to Eikenberry that, when she was ambassador to Colombia, she saw the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) finance their insurgency with profits from the cocaine trade, and she warned Eikenberry that the risk of a narco-insurgency in Afghanistan was very high. Eikenberry was familiar with the Colombian situation, but the Pentagon strategy was "sequencing" — defeat the Taliban, then have someone else clean up the drug business.

"[Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry] made it clear: drugs are bad, but his orders were that drugs were not a priority of the U.S. military in Afghanistan."

Another Sibel Edmonds quote, from 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

SE: You know how they always talk about these Islamic charities funding the terrorists, right?

CD: Yes...

SE: Well, and this is not a firm statistic, just a sort of ratio... but these charities are responsible for maybe 10 or 20 percent of al-Qaeda's fundraising. So where is the other 80 or 90 percent coming from? People, it's not so difficult!

Returning to Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?:

The Drug Enforcement Administration worked the heroin trafficking and interdiction effort with the Afghans. They targeted kingpins and disrupted drug-smuggling networks. The D.E.A. had excellent agents in Afghanistan, but there were not enough of them, and they had seemingly unending difficulties getting Mi-17 helicopters and other equipment that the Pentagon promised for the training of the counternarcotics police of Afghanistan. In addition, the Pentagon had reneged on a deal to allow the D.E.A. the use of precious ramp space at the Kabul airport. Consequently, the effort to interdict drug shipments and arrest traffickers had stalled. Less than 1 percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan was being seized there. The effort became even more complicated later in 2006, when Benjamin Freakley, the two-star U.S. general who ran the eastern front, shut down all operations by the D.E.A. and Afghan counternarcotics police in Nangarhar — a key heroin-trafficking province. The general said that antidrug operations were an unnecessary obstacle to his military operations.

Another Sibel Edmonds quote, from 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

SE: In some cases where the FBI stumbles upon evidence of high-level officials being involved in drug-smuggling, they're even prevented from sharing it with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency]. The Department of State just comes in and says, "Leave it."

You know, it's funny, after 9/11, the common criticism was that there was "no information-sharing" between the FBI, CIA, and the like, and this is why the terrorists pulled it off -- as if we didn't want to cooperate. No information-sharing? That's the biggest BS I ever heard!

And, another, from Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SH: I want to get to your appearance on Democracy Now! earlier in the week, referring to officials at the State Department, you used the word "treason." And I wonder whether this is specifically referring to the Sept. 11 attacks and whether you have information that indicates complicity on the part of American elites who are part of these semi-legit organizations that funded Sept. 11, or are we talking seven degrees of Kevin Bacon here?

SE: Again, it's hard to talk about this around the gag order, but this is what I have been saying for the past three years, that's why I refer to the transcript of CBS 60 Minutes. These people who call themselves Americans and these people are using their position, their official position within these agencies -- some of them in the Department of Defense, some of them in the Department of State -- and yet, what they are doing with their position, with their influence is against the United States' national security, it's against the best interests of its people, and that is treason. Be it giving information to those that are either quasi-allies -- and I would underline quasi, who one day will be another al-Qaeda -- and who are already are engaged in activities that are damaging to our country, its security and its interests -- and that is treason. So that's what I was referring to. And what would you call someone who, let's say if they were to go after Douglas Feith, and if they were to establish that Douglas Feith with his access to information, willingly, intentionally used the information he had and gave it to those that would one day use it or maybe right now are using that information against the United States. Would you call that treason?

SH: Well, if it's an overt act to benefit an American enemy then yes, that's treason.

SE: Correct, and I as I said, those lines are so blurry because there are certain countries that we call allies but I wouldn't call them allies, these people are, these countries are, quasi-allies.

SH: Okay, I'm going to go ahead and name some people whom I suspect inside the State Department and the Pentagon, and I suppose you won't be able to answer affirmative or negative on any of these, but I'm very curious when I read about this kind of corruption going on in the State Department, I immediately think of John Bolton and David Wurmser. Do those names mean anything to you?

SE: Well, first of all, I'm not going to answer that question at all, but also you should pay attention to the fact that some of these people have been there for a while, and some of these people had their roots in there even in the mid-1990s.

SH: So more career officials rather than political appointees.

SE: Or maybe a mixture of both.

Perhaps this puts the matter in context. Recall the passage from Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?, above:

Even before she got to the bureau of international narcotics, Anne Patterson knew that the Pentagon was hostile to the antidrug mission. A couple of weeks into the job, she got the story firsthand from Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who commanded all U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He made it clear: drugs are bad, but his orders were that drugs were not a priority of the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

Is the military being told by corrupt elements of the Bush Administration to leave heroin alone, even though heroin production is funding our enemy and paying for the attacks that kill American and allied troops?

Stay tuned to Stop Islamic Conquest as The Sword of Allah continues!

The Heroin Lobby, Part 5

(The images are not from the articles quoted.)



Two excerpts from The Highjacking of a Nation, Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals by Sibel Edmonds, November 29, 2006:

For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?

Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies; Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing, transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and technology, our military industrial complex’s bread and butter, is being generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?

When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable; some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and lobbying groups.

The American Turkish Council (ATC)

Operating tax-free and under the radar is one of the most powerful "non-profit" associations in the U.S., the American Turkish Council (ATC). Some who are familiar with its operations and players describe it as 'Mini AIPAC;' this description aces it. ATC followed the AIPAC model; with the direct help of AIPAC & JINSA, it created a base out of which to stretch its tentacles, reaching the highest echelons of our government. While the ATC is an association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated associations are the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and MIC. Investigative journalist, John Stanton, correctly describes the ATC as an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected Republicans, Democrats and corporate and military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in U.S. history.

Included in ATC's management, board of directors, and advisors; in addition to Turkish individuals of 'interest;' is a dizzying array of U.S. individuals. The ATC is led by Ret. General Brent Scowcroft, who serves as Chairman of the Board; George Perlman of Lockheed Martin, the Executive Vice President; other board members include: Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Ret. General Elmer Pendleton, Ret. General Joseph Ralston, Ret. Col. Preston Hughes, Alan Colegrove of Northrop Grumman, Frank Carlucci of Carlyle Group, Christine Vick of Cohen Group, Representative Robert Wexler, Former Rep. Ed Whitfield... Basically many formers; statesmen, 'dime a dozen generals,' and representatives.

On the members - paying clients – side; their list includes all the MIC's who's who, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman; the Washington Lobby scene's who's who; The Cohen Group, The Livingston Group, Washington Group International...

Of course, there are also many Turkish companies that are members of the ATC. Most of these companies have branches and operations in Libya, Dubai, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Although the official listings of their businesses are cited as 'construction,' 'real estate', 'manufacturing,' and 'tourism'; the main activities of these businesses are known to be related to global illegal arms sales and narcotic processing and trafficking. These companies provide necessary fronts and channels to launder proceeds. Curiously enough, hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted by the United States government, approved by the congress, to these Turkish companies under the guise of various 'U.S. Central Asian development programs;' and 'Iraq & Afghanistan reconstruction programs.'

Excerpts from Lawmakers still getting free trips overseas:

17 Dec 2007 // The new congressional ethics rules have curbed corporate-sponsored travel for lawmakers — but that doesn't mean they've been grounded.

Groups with foreign policy agendas are actively flying congressmen and their aides around the world, as does the high-tech industry, ideological groups and those seeking federal funds, such as universities and municipalities.

Organizations promoting Israel, China and Turkey were among the biggest trip sponsors this year.

The three nations have been mired in human rights and trade controversies under debate in Congress.

[snip]

INSIDE THE INFLUENCE

One of the biggest sponsors of trips is the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, which, despite its name, is not a social networking group.

Sixteen lawmakers and congressional staffers flew to Istanbul and Ankara on two different trips this year, courtesy of the USAFMC's "Congressional Study Group on Turkey," a 2005 creation whose funding includes pro-Turkey interest groups and companies that do business with the country.

The week-long trips occurred in May and August, just when Congress was debating the Armenian resolution.

The new ethics rules say that such trips cannot be planned or arranged by a lobbyist.

That doesn't mean that lobbyists cannot meet the delegations when they arrive.

While the sponsors are not allowed to explicitly tell lawmakers how to vote on a piece of legislation, there is nothing to prohibit them from making the case for their position.

The trips were entirely planned by the USAFMC, according to the group's executive director, Peter Weichlein, who responded to written questions.

"No representatives of the Turkish government have any influence over any aspect of our trips, programming and funding," he wrote.

During the August trip, the travelers stopped at the home of former U.S. Rep. Stephen Solarz, a longtime lobbyist for Turkey.

Solarz spoke to the group about the Armenian resolution and the PKK issue, Dillihay said.

"He expressed a sense of what kind of effect it could have on Turkey and U.S.-Turkish relationships," Dillihay said.

"If it was lobbying, it was soft as it could be. It was just like somebody hosting you in their house for lunch," she said.

The purpose of the meeting with Solarz was refreshments and a discussion of history, Weichlein wrote.

Cohen, who also went on a trip to Turkey, opposes the Armenian resolution, citing Turkey's strategic importance in the Middle East region and support for the U.S. in the Iraq war.

Bob Livingston, the former congressman whose firm took the lead in lobbying for Turkey on the Armenia issue, told Politico he was not involved in planning the congressional delegation's visit.

"I had absolutely nothing to do with this trip," he said.

Livingston said Solarz was working with his firm to lobby for Turkey at the time he met with the congressional delegation, and that he himself is on the USAFMC board.

In fact, even if Solarz did lobby the group, he would have been in compliance, said Jan Baran, an ethics expert at Wiley Rein.

Baran, who has done work for USAFMC on other matters, said the rules prohibit a lobbyist from traveling with a congressional delegation, not from meeting with one once it has arrived.

The ethics rules definition of "a trip" as only applying to the physical movement between locations "is fundamentally absurd," Baran said.

THE LETTER OF THE LAW

The new rules are not always quite what they seem.

One of the top sponsors of congressional trips for this year and years past is the foundation run by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which calls itself "America's pro-Israel lobby."

The American Israel Education Foundation has funded 50 trips this year, at a cost of $633,560.

The foundation, which has no website of its own, is identified on www.aipac.org as "AIPAC's educational foundation."

The new ethics rules prohibit travel for more than a one-day trip from an organization that "retains or employs a lobbyist."

So, while AIPAC can't finance a week-long trip, its educational arm can.

Still, the group has to be careful to comply with the law. The education arm doesn't receive funding from AIPAC and the group's lobbyists are not involved with the trips, said Josh Block, an AIPAC spokesman.

The purpose of the trips is "to help members of Congress understand the issues that are at play over there," Block said.

The Israeli government in recent years has made some controversial decisions, including the expansion of settlements, the invasion of Lebanon and the bombing of a site in Syria.

Congress voted to give Israel $2.4 billion in military aid for 2008.

From Christopher Deliso's An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Two, July 1, 2004:

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front – say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities – and they might even do that – but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything – from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

CD: So with these organizations we're talking about a lot of money –

SE: Huge, just massive. They don't deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.