Taleban had NEVER ever stopped growing opium. Not even in 2001. Taht was western propaganda designed to make Taleban acceptable to liberal eyes so that they can bring in piped gzs from Turkmenistan. However you are wrong about the Taleban having imposed a successful opium cultivation ban in 2001. It was drought that did the opium crop in, but not to the extent that the UNODC certified. They must have grown more than 1000 tons and NOT the 200 tons that UNODC, working like a puppet of the US declared. Myanmar’s illegal opium crop and India’s licit opium crop too were affected considerably by that drought.
UNODC’s pliant head - Pino Arlachi - had become a puppet of some American oil companies which wanted to extract Turkmenistan gas and pipe it through Western Afghanisatn to makran in Pakistan. Thus, the West and the UNODC were anxious to certify that the Taleban were not encouraging opium cultivation. They bent over backwards to give that FALSE certification. Study the opium seizure figures of 2001 and subsequent years. Apart from a very minor decrease in 2001 (reflecting the reduction in opium crop due to drought) there was no let up in the seizures. In 2001 alone neighbouring countries of Afghanistan seized more than 100 tons of heroin and 200 tons of opium. And the UNODC certified yield for that year was 200 tons!!! where did this stuff come from? So, for all those who believe that the Taleban was anti drug for one year in 2001 I have this to say- forget it. A bunch of criminals who have no respect for human life or for gender could never be principled enough, even for a brief moment, to ban opium cultivation. That is where they were getting quite a lot of funds from. They still are.
Romesh Bhattacharji
rbhatto@gmail.com
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Written By:
Romesh Bhattacharji
URL:
http://bameduniya.tripod.com
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In further corroboration of this point check out this post from Afghan blogger Afghan Lord (which I linked to in the CotL last week). |
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Written By:
Dave Schuler
URL:
http://www.theglitteringeye.com
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Pashtun nationalism was always going to make Afghanistan a difficult country to pacify. |
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Written By:
Harun
URL:
http://
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