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News :: International Relations |
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White House: US-controlled Afghanistan a “threat to world security” |
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by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (verified)
Phone: 217-328-3037
Address: 801 E California, Urbana IL 61801 |
07 Mar 2005
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The spin doctors are having to work double overtime. A new presidential report to Congress admits that since the US invasion of Afghanistan, opium production that country has more than tripled. Thanks to our efforts, the West asian nation has almost achieved "narcotics state" status. Iraq, too, is increasingly out of (our) control. This we call "success," and it's spreading. |
Reports of dramatic increases in opium production in Afghanistan since the US invasion of that country have been fairly consistent practically since the fall of Kabul. And almost all have spun the heroin story as a “continuing” problem, as if the Taliban had not significantly cut opium production during their reign (among other widespread criminal activities that had reached epidemic proportions between the Soviet pullout and Taliban rule, only to return with the US invasion).
An AP story this weekend, appended below, is no exception, this time citing a presidential report to Congress that describes the opium problem in the US puppet state as “an enormous threat to world stability.” The irony of this, immediately obvious to anyone paying attention, is naturally omitted in the article. Beyond this, the article is an excellent case study in how to read the news, as Noam Chomsky has said, as if reading “enemy propaganda”.
Enemy propaganda
“More than three years after installing a pro-U.S. government,” the article begins, “Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state.”
Note here also that this opening line makes clear that it was “Afghanistan” that “install[ed] a pro-US government,” regardless of what undisciplined minds might think we remember. The article does at least mention the US invasion and occupation later, albeit a bit coyly: “In Afghanistan, the U.S. military deposed the Taliban government in November 2001. President Hamid Karzai has been in charge since then with strong American backing.”
In this the article picks up a particularly Orwellian theme in the reporting of recent US invasions, exemplifying the impressive discipline of the US media: the US invasion force, together with its minority of allies among the locals, takes over the name of the occupied nation itself, while any indigenous opposition to foreign occupation, and their allies, become the outsiders.
We therefore do not write, “The US overthrew the Afghan government in November 2001 and installed a more cooperative government headed by President Hamid Karzai, elected under highly irregular electoral conditions” (under US-declared martial law after the US forced his leading opponent to withdraw), or any similar obscenity.
Instead, it was merely the hated Taliban surgically “deposed” by the US (or only by its military?), as if removing a wart from the nose of Afghanistan, thereby allowing the natural immunity of universal (a.k.a. Western-style neoliberal democratic) humanity to reassert itself in the person of Hamid Karzai -- whom the US naturally supports because we would never think of interfering with a legitimate government (legitimate by definition because it’s “pro-US”).
Likewise in Iraq we discuss “US-led and Iraqi forces” versus “insurgents”, not “US occupation and client forces” versus “Iraqi resistance” (LA Times 3/2/05; etc.).
Winning is losing
The logic can become quite elusive, as in Orwell’s classic when the protagonist realizes he must believe simultaneously that Oceania’s war is going well, in order to maintain the proper patriotic pride and productivity levels, and that the situation is desperate and much in need of the greatest possible sacrifice on the part of each and every citizen.
Similarly, the AP story on the presidential report quotes US officials proclaiming “significant progress globally against narcotics trafficking in 2004” and simultaneously warning that “all nations must redouble their efforts to meet the challenge posed by drug trafficking.”
“Worldwide, the United States is committing $1.2 billion to counter-narcotics activities this year,” the article explains, including a proposed $780 million for Afghanistan, yet to be approved. This is needed apparently, because of the enormous problems outlined in the report to Congress. At the same time, “with US efforts, the size of illicit drug crops in the Western Hemisphere was cut significantly” -- unless we are talking about some “threat” in Latin America, of course, in which case the reverse is true.
Colombia, after all, “is the source of more than 90 percent of the cocaine and 50 percent of the heroin entering the United States, the report said. It is also a leading user of precursor chemicals and the focus of significant money laundering activity.” And so on.
But for the present, “the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a record of more than 510,000 acres, more than triple the figure for 2003.” Yet somehow the AP story is not that opium production has been exploding in Afghanistan since the US invasion in 2002, merely that the newly liberated country has been “unable to contain” it. And nowhere is the suggestion that this rise might be an indication that the US has had a negative impact in the West Asian country.
Certainly there is no hint of memory that “counter-narcotics” budgets have been used before (Southeast Asia, Colombia) as cover for military operations against non-compliant populations. For propaganda purposes apparently, winning is the same as losing.
Failed states, new and old
The point generalizes well beyond drug policy to any conflict in which Washington needs to whip up support. Take a recent LA Times article, for example, which purports to evaluate the strength of remaining opposition to US forces in Iraq. The article is titled like a Soviet production report or a Wehrmacht newsreel: “THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ; Insurgency Is Waning, a Top U.S. General Says,” (3/2/05) -- even though recent reports from various intelligence agencies confirm the opposite, some mentioned in the same article.
The general reasons, in lock step with official spin doctors, that the fact that the January elections in Iraq occurred at all proves anything and everything we like. For some, such as NPR’s Daniel Schorr (All Things Considered 3/1/05) and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield (AFP 3/3/05), the alleged “success” of these elections is already inspiring “democratic reforms” all over the Middle East. This suggests that, yes, surprisingly, our side was right again -- regardless of the flagrant disregard for truth, law or basic morality with which the US slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, most of them children. For Gen. Abizaid and presumably others the elections are proof positive that “the violent guerrilla movement [is] fizzling.”
Might makes right, and even the formal trappings will do for success.
At the same time, “Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command,” the article reports, “told a Senate committee that approximately 3,500 insurgents were involved in planning and executing the roughly 300 attacks on election day, Jan. 30.” This number, the article explains later, “was five times normal, and at least 44 people died in suicide bombings and mortar strikes,” (LAT 3/2/05)
In fact, CIA Director Porter J. Goss and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby had reported just two weeks before that “insurgency had grown ‘in size and complexity’ over the previous year [attacks increasing] from about 25 a day to more than 60.” This so-called “insurgency,” according to a recent “Iraqi intelligence report,” now consists of an “estimated 40,000 hard-core insurgents and 200,000 part-time fighters.”
At the time of these reports, others had documented the increase in “insurgent” attacks since the elections in Iraq (NYT, 2/13/05). One quoted an unnamed US official in Baghdad as saying the “insurgency” would likely last “many years” (Chicago Tribune 2/10/05). And the general’s statement itself “came a day after one of the most lethal attacks” again by “insurgents” since “the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.” In the attack, a suicide car bomb “killed more than 100 people, including dozens of recruits for Iraq’s fledgling security forces,” (LAT 3/2/05).
Yet we are winning, the general says, and hence the “insurgents” are “fizzling”, because of the righteousness of our cause. This cause of ours, when it’s in Iraq, is the “Iraqi” cause, because our interests are identical to that of the true “Iraqis”, as it is identical with the true “Afghanis”, who by definition are allied with us. In his report to Congress, Gen. Abizaid went so far as to compare the effort to create a US-allied “Iraqi” army to crush the “insurgency” with the American Revolutionary experience, again without a trace of irony. “That's a good sort of model to keep in mind when we talk about Iraqi security forces,” he explained. “They keep getting better and better.”
It should not trouble patriotic Americans that this assessment may also be based on shifting sands, as Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) points out: “One document cited by Levin indicates that 89 of 90 Iraqi battalions ‘are lightly equipped and armed and have very little mobility and sustainment capabilities.’”
The same could be said, and in fact has been noted, of the new Afghan regime, still heavily dependent on US troops in order to remain at least nominally in power. Afghanistan, like Iraq, is both a proud “success” story and a desperate situation in need of continued US presence, probably for some years.
It should not trouble us at all that a major charge against the “failed state” of the Taliban government had been its inability to control large areas of countryside, where terrorists had free reign and drug-lords effectively ruled, whereas now the new state is “an enormous threat to world security” for much the same reason. In fact, as in Iraq, what Washington earlier alleged is now coming true. Only now we have hundreds of thousands of troops, not to mention a few well-connected US corporations, there.
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Report: Afghanistan Near Drug-State Status
3-4-05
By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - More than three years after installing a pro-U.S. government, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state, a presidential report said Friday.
The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a record of more than 510,000 acres, more than triple the figure for 2003. Opium poppy is the raw material for heroin.
The Afghan narcotics situation "represents an enormous threat to world stability," the report said.
It listed opium production at 5,445 tons, 17 times more than second-place Myanmar.
The massive study, covering the state of illicit narcotics in 2004 in virtually all countries, was transmitted to Congress by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on behalf of President Bush.
Colombia remains a major drug country, the report said, despite impressive progress against narcotics trafficking.
It credited Colombia's public security forces with preventing hundreds of tons of illicit drugs from reaching the world market through interdiction, spraying of coca and poppy crops, and manual eradication.
The United States has been a major counterdrug partner of Colombia, having contributed billions of dollars to the effort since 2000.
Colombia is the source of more than 90 percent of the cocaine and 50 percent of the heroin entering the United States, the report said. It is also a leading user of precursor chemicals and the focus of significant money laundering activity.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. military deposed the Taliban government in November 2001. President Hamid Karzai has been in charge since then with strong American backing.
"Dangerous security conditions make implementing counternarcotics programs difficult and present a substantial obstacle to both poppy eradication efforts by the national government and to international efforts to provide related assistance," the report said.
Also contributing to the situation is the destruction resulting from 25 years of conflict, the lack of legitimate income streams, and the limited enforcement capacity of the national government, the report said.
A five-point plan for Afghanistan developed in the latter half of 2004 includes promotion of alternative crops for poppy farmers, ground eradication and interdiction of heroin labs and storage facilities.
The administration is proposing $780 million to help implement the plan.
The report said that with U.S. efforts, the size of illicit drug crops in the Western Hemisphere was cut significantly.
Nonetheless, the study pointed out that Bolivian coca cultivation increased 6 percent even though the government exceeded its commitment to eradicate nearly 20,000 acres of the coca crop.
On Mexico, the report credited the government of President Vicente Fox with continued "unprecedented cooperation" in combating drug flows.
The cooperation included, the report said, the arrest of numerous Mexican drug kingpins and top aides as part of an effort to dismantle major crime organizations.
However, it added, Mexico was the transit point for 90 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from South America. It also listed Mexico as a major the producer of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana destined for U.S. markets.
Worldwide, the United States is committing $1.2 billion to counter-narcotics activities this year.
The undersecretary of state for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky, told reporters there was significant progress globally against narcotics trafficking in 2004. She cited Latin America and Southeast Asia as areas of progress.
Nonetheless, she said, "all nations must redouble their efforts to meet the challenge posed by drug trafficking."
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On the Web:
State Department report: http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2005/ |
See also:
http://www.anti-war.net
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This work is in the public domain |
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