Terror groups 'raise funds through drugs'

[TexasLawyer]

Source: The Australian

Terror groups 'raise funds through drugs'

From correspondents in Herzliya | September 10, 2007

NEARLY half of the 42 groups considered by the United States to be terror organisations fund their activities through drug trafficking, a top US official said in Israel today. The Drug Enforcement Administration's Michael Braun told a conference on The Global Impact of Terrorism, organised by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, that the DEA "linked 18 of the 42 officially designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) to drug trafficking activities of some sort".

The DEA's assistant administrator, chief of operations, told delegates the phenomenon is due to the fact that state support for terrorism has receded, and that terror organisations - al-Qaeda in particular - have "shifted from a corporate structure to a franchise structure".

Mr Braun said nothing is more profitable than drugs in raising cash for such groups. The United Nations estimates that narcotics trafficking is worth $US322 billion ($388.96 billion) annually across the globe, and $US65 billion ($78.52 billion) alone in the United States, according to federal figures.

<snip>

"That's what the Taliban are doing now in Afghanistan," Mr Braun said. "They are taxing farmers, but we have indications that they started providing security. That's what happened to the FARC 15 years ago."



Read more: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22391495-12377,00.html

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Mission accomplished!

[ck4829]

1. This is news?

Our government turned a blind eye to the Contras when they weren't raping women and killing humanitarian activists, decided to ship crack cocaine into the US.

[siri2k]

2. Uh, the Taliban had *zero* poppy production. It's the Bush bin Laden....

drug cultivation and trade that's taking place in Afghanistan, and all over the world.

[ohio2007]

6. ? "zero" ?

They had zero tolerance for unregulated heroin production. They controlled the poppy production with an iron fist when they came to power in 1995 until they were kicked out in 2001, which,in turn drove the price of heroin through the roof.
That price hike gave rise to meth lab pharmaceutical industry that thrives so well in the west today.

The Iranian poor are suffering the most from this boom time harvest.

[John Q. Citizen]

12. Yeah, near zero at the time the West invaded. the Taliban had outlawed

poppy growing, and they enforced it Nationwide, except in the pockets controlled by the Northern Alliance, our allies.

what does a "meth lab" have to do with heroin?


http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir011022_3_n.shtml


By the way, almost all the heroin in the states is from Columbian poppies.

[ohio2007]

15. near zero "at the time of the invasion" yet the experts say

Afghanistan produces 90% of the world consumption .
from your articl link;
...traditional opium poppy cultivation grew significantly during the anti-Soviet war of 1979-89 and accelerated rapidly in the first half of the 1990s.

With an estimated 2,485ha under cultivation in 2000,
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir011022_3_n.shtml

During the time of your Taliban buddies reign,they allowed small quantities that fetched high prices. They also received foreign aid to clamp down and dry up the drug trade.
So
They did dry up the poppy growth in non Taliban tribal regions.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. I think you are confused. The Taliban didn't come to power until 1995.

The US financially supported the anti-soviet fighters (and hence, the poppy trade) during the Soviet Period. After the Soviets withdrew, a civil war commenced. Once the Taliban took over control of almost all the country, they suppressed the cultivation of poppies. The part of the country the Taliban didn't control, in the far North East, was where the opium was coming from.

The 2485 figure is mainly from the North -East which wasn't under Taliban control.

It's not all that difficult to understand.

The Taliban in the late 90's suppressed Opium production where they had control. Where they didn't, it grew, as a source of money for arms for the Taliban resistance.

Why do you say the Taliban are my buddies? I think you are just an enemy of the facts. And you willingly distort the facts because.....????

[CJCRANE]

24. As per what JQC said

I think you'll find that the Taliban being religious fundamentalists had zero tolerance for all the fun things in life, including drugs (although I tend to agree with them in the case of heroin).

[ronnie624]

23. lol

Some people need to do a little reading before they post.

Poppy production has increased exponentially, every single year, since the US invasion of Afghanistan.

[dipsydoodle]

3. As you you said

Mission accomplished !

[Fovea]

4. and the fake Chinese viagra

sapping the confidence of the American journalists and Hummer drivers everywhere.

[nebenaube]

5. The Drug war creates the profit incentive.

If everyone who wanted too; could grow their own weed. There would be no market for meth or coke or opium or it's derivitives. edit... and the CIA would probably go bankrupt.

[reggie the dog]

18. there would still be a small market

Don't get me wrong, I try to grow my own in the woods every year. But you must admit that some folks are not happy with just weed, they want that knocked on their ass heroin high or some good speedy crack.

[Demeter]

7. I Expect History Will Find the Bush Family Evil Empire Tops in This Field

both in terrorism and drug running.

[ohio2007]

8. dunno, he is behind a tough act previously in Afghanistan

Taliban treatment of women

While in power in Afghanistan, the Taliban became notorious internationally for their treatment of women. Their stated aim was to create "secure environments where the chasteness and dignity of women may once again be sacrosanct." The way women were treated was reportedly based on Pashtunwali beliefs about living in purdah.

Women were forced to wear the burqa in public, because, according to a Taliban spokesman, "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them.

snip




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women

[John Q. Citizen]

14. Bush is responsible for the deaths of around 500,000 women in Iraq alone.

How many women are you claiming the Taliban was responsible for killing?

[SOS]

21. Afghanistan was abandoned by Bush Sr.

Once the US had achieved the goal of driving the USSR out of Afghanistan in 1989, the CIA packed up and left.
Old Bush was President at the time.
His appalling, short-sighted stupidity left a power vacuum in Afghanistan.
Six years of chaos, lawlessness and war lord fighting ensued.
The Taliban, aided by a nervous Pakistan, took over in 1995 and, at first, were welcomed for restoring order.
The Taliban then went to the extremes in your photo, as well as many other outrages.

Why can't the Bush family do anything right?

[whistle]

9. Terror groups like the CIA

[Trillo]

27. I thought a similar thing

every time I read this thread's headline. I kept seeing:

"Terror groups 'raise funds through oil'"

Your mentioning of the CIA also reminds of intelligence-agency privatization:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1771746

[askeptic]

10. This is an attempt to link the drug war and global terror war

So that the war on terra can be used to incarcerate all under it's laws - don't need evidence, court orders - none of that "due process" crap...

...and those who openly advocate decriminalization or legalization are advocating for TERRA!

[ProudDad]

11. Damn, I thought the justice dept.

was finally busted for creating and supporting the phony "war on drugs" to fund CIA dirty dealings.

Decriminalize, end the phony "war on drugs" and you'd find that annual "trafficking figure" cut by 2/3 overnight...

[niceypoo]

13. The pharmacutical industry has been funding Bush for years...

[reggie the dog]

17. legalize

If most countries would just legalize the production, sale, possession, and use of these drugs their values would drop and "normal" businesses would take over the trade instead of criminal organizations. This is really the only solution because folks are not going to stop getting high any time soon.

[High Plains]

19. "Terror Groups Raise Funds Through [Drug Prohibition]"

That would be the more accurate title.

Yet another unintended consequence of the global drug prohibition regime.

Any Democratic candidates addressing ending drug prohibition?

[tchunter]

20. GRAVEL!!

he supports ending the war on drugs, granted he's old and sometimes a little crazy he is a man who deserves much respect.

[tom_paine]

22. Another case of projection: Bushies make most of their Black Ops $$$$ by pushing

Look at Contra-Cocaine, at the very least, and as the circle moves out in terms of "tinfoil", (i.e. lesser probablility of certainty) to things like the story of the introdutcion of crack to the African-American community, which has never even been investigated other than the first story that got the Full Spectrum Infoganda Dominance Bushie reaction that they reserve for truth-tellers who can't easily be discredited like Richard Clarke.

Projection here (not that it would surprise me if the CIA got their Black Ops $$$$ the same way terrorists raise their cash...what a METAPHOR!)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

25. Sure, bad guys make money off illegal drugs.

Just like they did off of illegal alcohol during prohibition.

The US war on drugs is a huge money maker for bad guys around the world. However, too many people in seats of power are profiting from this for them to attempt a real solution.

[karynnj]

26. Well we know the Contras did - and the CIA let them!

[bemildred]

28. Pot is the largest cash crop in how many US states? I forget. nt

[mitchum]

29. Yes, and it's spelled..C...I...A