I just found out the real reason we are at war

[FlaGranny]

in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I found out at the optometrist's office. No kidding. Are you ready?

We are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq because of drugs. It is a war against drug producers and suppliers. The rioting in France - same reason. They are all drug dealers in a Mafia-like organization and want to take over the world so they can sell drugs.

No kidding, for real, that is what she said. I know the people in the office are possibly "evangelists" because someone associated with the office is a missionary, but I love the doctor and have been seeing him for 25 years, and they never bring up religion in the office. The war talk started when a man in the office spoke about his service in WWII and I brought up my father in WWI. Otherwise, I have never heard any political talk in the office either.

Do you suppose this is really what evangelists believe? Is this a new thing or is this what they've always believed? There was absolutely no talk of WMD or nuclear weapons, no talk of liberating Afghanis or Iraqis, no talk of oil, no talk of Middle Eastern problems. It was just ALL about drugs - everywhere, all over the world. Who knew?

I was a bit shocked by the rationale and the disregard for the causes of the wars, both the real reasons and the Government-propagandized reasons.

I asked her if she knew that drug production in Afghanistan had actually INCREASED, but she wouldn't believe it. I thought about arguing with her, but I decided I didn't have the time to waste on someone so misinformed, and no use starting a scene in a doctor's office.

So is this a new talking point, or just (hopefully) a personal opinion from a "one-sided coin."

[sonofliberty]

1. prodution and sale of opium went up in the golden triangle during nam too

[hippiechick]

2. Has she done any research into why GHW's nickname is "POPPY" ?

The CIA has been among the biggest drug running cartels in the World.

And who was its head, for how long ?

[FlaGranny]

6. You know, I didn't get into it any further.

Didn't want to waste my time on someone with such ideas. She would never understand.

I still wonder if this idea is being circulated among certain larger circles or just an opinion of a deluded few.

[hobbit709]

3. Cui Bono?

If it's about drugs, then who is getting the money? The warlords that are growing it are the warlords our government is supporting.

[snappyturtle]

4. This just proves...

how desperate the right wing is looking for ANYTHING to justify the war. :banghead:

[daleanime]

7. They don't have to justify the war...

just as long as it makes them money.

[LisaLynne]

5. I personally haven't heard that, but ...

it would make sense for some of them to use that as a justification. Drugs=bad in their black and white minds and so anybody doing anything against drugs is fighting for the children of the world. They have to justify it some how.

[FlaGranny]

10. I can see that point, but

if that is their cause, they should be interested enough in the outcome to know that drug production, especially in Afghanistan, has increased. Here's a little about it.

Bush’s Opium Boom
by James Bovard, Posted: May 28 2003

"Last year saw what is probably the single biggest one-year increase in opium production in world history. Since the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime, opium production in Afghanistan has increased from 185 tons in 2001 to 3,700 tons in 2002 — an increase of twentyfold. Afghanistan has historically produced more than two-thirds of the world opium supply and the resurgence of Afghan production is good news for heroin addicts everywhere."

more:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0304d.asp

Disclaimer: I have not researched the site, but, on a quick perusal, it looks libertarian to me. First site I found with the statistics.

[LisaLynne]

18. I don't think they want to know the truth.

The specific people I'm thinking of, which may or may not be the people you've encountered, of course (I'm trying not to generalize -- :) ), don't usually think beyond the initial "fact" or idea. I think the thought process goes something like, "War is usually bad, but it's being fought to stop drugs, so that's okay." They don't want to investigate if it's true or not or even if it's working. They just want something they can cling to when they are confronted with the horrors of the war or with people making points as to why it wasn't the right thing to do.

[progressoid]

8. Whew, thats a load off my mind.

NOW it all seems worth it.

[brokensymmetry]

9. Yep. It's for a specific drug...

called OIL.

Unfortunately, we haven't admitted we're addicted.

[Lexingtonian]

11. they just make shit up

Actually, this is a good example of what people have seen among Right wingers and called "associationism". They take two facts that happen to coincide somewhat in space and time which attract them emotionally, and then they tell themselves that the two are reasons for each other and interlinked and inseparable.

It's really a manifestation of a belief in demons and the like. (Here 'drugs'=demon.) I think of that as a magic materialism, i.e. the central object of the belief behaves like a material object but has magical effects on human behavior. The original, ancient, source of the doctrine is probably experience with rabies virus infections. But the choice to retain it a as general theory for explaining the world after the Enlightenment is, well, groteque and unEnlightened.

I've never found a way to have an intelligent conversation with people who are in the grips of this. They're secretly just afraid of dealing with the reality of things and their share of responsibility for it.

[FlaGranny]

13. Thank you.

That's exactly what I think it is - and you've come to the same conclusion I have about trying to converse with them.

Got to go to work now. Thanks again for that excellent description.

[KansDem]

12. "The shoemaker's kids are the last to have shoes"

For an optometrist's staff, they don't see very well.

[FlaGranny]

14. Ha, ha! Good one.

But I just love the optometrist. He's so sweet and I've been going there so many years - I will just never enter into another conversation there about world events and, like I say, they talk religion in the office.

[mrdmk]

15. First, some people just get their facts wrong and have trouble correcting

them.

Second, in church people will bring up anything that is "un-holy" about a supposed foe and repeat it until it becomes fact.

Not to mention some people claim they can get present day facts from the Holy Bible. History channel has a running series on this (I forget the name)and also there are supposedly hidden messages in the text (just like the Beatles album).

As far as you discussing this with this person I have my own story. A son of a friend in 2002 said about the Grey Davis recall he had seen all of the fraud in the California budget that Arnold Schwarzenegger was talking about. His mom just smiled at me and did I not even go into that conversation with him. When people say ALL or an extreme along those lines, it is good to be skeptical and keep your mouth shut.


edit: clarity

[tx_dem41]

16. If all we cared about was eradicating drug in Aghanistan...

we would have kept giving the Taliban $43,000,000 a year like we did in 5/01.

[Senator]

17. It's not all that wacky -- perhaps they've just got it BassAckwards

As usual.

I try to keep my tinfoil hat in its locked cupboard and only take it out under controlled condidtions.

That said, at some point you have to at least consider the actual, tangible results of a pattern of actions/inactions -- setting aside any possible motive or intent. Like with the Katrina response or the LIHOP/MIHOP choice, weighing criminal intent vs. criminal negligence/incompetence is fairly irrelevant on some level -- particularly the level of "victim."

In this light, the "reason" for war in Afghanistan can be a quite troubling mystery.

First, it was nothing to do with 9-11. We offered the Taliban a "carpet of gold, or a carpet of bombs" long before the attack. It could even be said that this threat provoked and/or abetted the attack (again, willfully? - who's to say?).

The drug reality is that the Taliban had virtually eliminated the world's largest production source, on moral/religious grounds. The tangible result of our bombing them from the stone age back to the rubble age is that the country has returned to their pre-Taliban status as top producer.

That's a big pile of money that could be put to "good use" by a "rogue military-intelligence cabal," such as the ones we know operated in both Central America (to fund the contras) and SouthEast Asia (to fund the anti-communists).

If that's the pattern it must be remembered that neither the contras nor the anti-communists ended up all that well-funded by these big piles of money. These piles have a habit of vaporizing just as quickly as Iraqi reconstruction billions do today.

Now, someone could always "follow the money" if there was a rigorous, anti-terrorist financial protocol implemented that would provide sufficient transparency. But sadly, providing such a non-violent protection to future victims of terrorism always seems to be so darned "complex."

So these "one sided coins" can be given some latitude for latching onto these scuttlebutt rumors that non-ideological, non-political, purely-criminal greed is the engine here ("root of all evil" and all that).

Happily for them they don't have to consider just which side of the coin the real criminals are on.

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www.january6th.org