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Opium, Rape and the American Way: Afghanistan And US
Imperialism
19 November 2009
By Chris Hedges
November 03, 2009 "Truthdig" -- The warlords we
champion in Afghanistan are as venal, as opposed to
the rights of women and basic democratic freedoms, and
as heavily involved in opium trafficking as the
Taliban. The moral lines we draw between us and our
adversaries are fictional. The uplifting narratives
used to justify the war in Afghanistan are pathetic
attempts to redeem acts of senseless brutality. War
cannot be waged to instill any virtue, including
democracy or the liberation of women. War always
empowers those who have a penchant for violence and
access to weapons. War turns the moral order upside
down and abolishes all discussions of human rights.
War banishes the just and the decent to the margins of
society. And the weapons of war do not separate the
innocent and the damned. An aerial drone is our
version of an improvised explosive device. An iron
fragmentation bomb is our answer to a suicide bomb. A
burst from a belt-fed machine gun causes the same
terror and bloodshed among civilians no matter who
pulls the trigger.
"We need to tear the mask off of the fundamentalist
warlords who after the tragedy of 9/11 replaced the
Taliban," Malalai Joya, who was expelled from the
Afghan parliament two years ago for denouncing
government corruption and the Western occupation, told
me during her visit to New York last week. "They used
the mask of democracy to take power. They continue
this deception. These warlords are mentally the same
as the Taliban. The only change is physical. These
warlords during the civil war in Afghanistan from 1992
to 1996 killed 65,000 innocent people. They have
committed human rights violations, like the Taliban,
against women and many others."
"In eight years less than 2,000 Talib have been killed
and more than 8,000 innocent civilians has been
killed," she went on. "We believe that this is not war
on terror. This is war on innocent civilians. Look at
the massacres carried out by NATO forces in
Afghanistan. Look what they did in May in the Farah
province, where more than 150 civilians were killed,
most of them women and children. They used white
phosphorus and cluster bombs. There were 200 civilians
on 9th of September killed in the Kunduz province,
again most of them women and children. You can see the
Web site of professor Marc Herold, this democratic
man, to know better the war crimes in Afghanistan
imposed on our people. The United States and NATO
eight years ago occupied my country under the banner
of woman's rights and democracy. But they have only
pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put
into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban."
Afghanistan' s boom in the trade in opium, used to
produce heroin, over the past eight years of
occupation has funneled hundreds of millions of
dollars to the Taliban, al-Qaida, local warlords,
criminal gangs, kidnappers, private armies, drug
traffickers and many of the senior figures in the
government of Hamid Karzai. The New York Times
reported that the brother of President Karzai, Ahmed
Wali Karzai, has been collecting money from the CIA
although he is a major player in the illegal opium
business. Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the
world's opium in a trade that is worth some $65
billion, the United Nations estimates. This opium
feeds some 15 million addicts worldwide and kills
around 100,000 people annually. These fatalities
should be added to the rolls of war dead.
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said that
the drug trade has permitted the Taliban to thrive and
expand despite the presence of 100,000 NATO troops.
"The Taliban's direct involvement in the opium trade
allows them to fund a war machine that is becoming
technologically more complex and increasingly
widespread," said Costa.
The UNODC estimates the Taliban earned $90 million to
$160 million a year from taxing the production and
smuggling of opium and heroin between 2005 and 2009,
as much as double the amount it earned annually while
it was in power nearly a decade ago. And Costa
described the Afghan-Pakistani border as "the world's
largest free trade zone in anything and everything
that is illicit," an area blighted by drugs, weapons
and illegal immigration. The "perfect storm of drugs
and terrorism" may be on the move along drug
trafficking routes through Central Asia, he warned.
Profits made from opium are being pumped into militant
groups in Central Asia and "a big part of the region
could be engulfed in large-scale terrorism,
endangering its massive energy resources," Costa said.
"Afghanistan, after eight years of occupation, has
become a world center for drugs," Joya told me. "The
drug lords are the only ones with power. How can you
expect these people to stop the planting of opium and
halt the drug trade? How is it that the Taliban when
they were in power destroyed the opium production and
a superpower not only cannot destroy the opium
production but allows it to increase? And while all
this goes on, those who support the war talk to you
about women's rights. We do not have human rights now
in most provinces. It is as easy to kill a woman in my
country as it is to kill a bird. In some big cities
like Kabul, some women have access to jobs and
education, but in most of the country the situation
for women is hell. Rape, kidnapping and domestic
violence are increasing. These fundamentalists during
the so-called free elections made a misogynist law
against Shia women in Afghanistan. This law has even
been signed by Hamid Karzai. All these crimes are
happening under the name of democracy."
Thousands of Afghan civilians have died from insurgent
and foreign military violence. And American and NATO
forces are responsible for almost half the civilian
deaths in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan
civilians have also died from displacement,
starvation, disease, exposure, lack of medical
treatment, crime and lawlessness resulting from the
war.
Joya argues that Karzai and his rival Abdullah
Abdullah, who has withdrawn from the Nov. 7 runoff
election, will do nothing to halt the transformation
of Afghanistan into a narco-state. She said that NATO,
by choosing sides in a battle between two corrupt and
brutal opponents, has lost all its legitimacy in the
country.
The recent resignation of a high-level U.S. diplomat
in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, was in part tied to the
drug problem. Hoh wrote in his resignation letter that
Karzi's government is filled with "glaring corruption
and unabashed graft." Karzi, he wrote, is a president
"whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug
lords and war crimes villains who mock our own rule of
law and counter-narcotics effort."
Joya said, "Where do you think the $36 billion of
money poured into country by the international
community have gone? This money went into the pockets
of the drug lords and the warlords. There are 18
million people in Afghanistan who live on less than $2
a day while these warlords get rich. The Taliban and
warlords together contribute to this fascism while the
occupation forces are bombing and killing innocent
civilians. When we do not have security how can we
even talk about human rights or women's rights?"
"This election under the shade of Afghan war-lordism,
drug-lordism, corruption and occupation forces has no
legitimacy at all," she said. "The result will be like
the same donkey but with new saddles. It is not
important who is voting. It is important who is
counting. And this is our problem. Many of those who
go with the Taliban do not support the Taliban, but
they are fed up with these warlords and this
injustice, and they go with the Taliban to take
revenge. I do not agree with them, but I understand
them. Most of my people are against the Taliban and
the warlords, which is why millions did not take part
in this tragic drama of an election."
"The U.S. wastes taxpayers' money and the blood of
their soldiers by supporting such a mafia corrupt
system of Hamid Karzai," said Joya, who changes houses
in Kabul frequently because of the numerous death
threats made against her. "Eight years is long enough
to learn about Karzai and Abdullah. They chained my
country to the center of drugs. If Obama was really
honest he would support the democratic-minded people
of my country. We have a lot [of those people]. But he
does not support the democratic-minded people of my
country. He is going to start war in Pakistan by
attacking in the border area of Pakistan. More
civilians have been killed in the Obama period than
even during the criminal Bush."
"My people are sandwiched between two powerful
enemies," she lamented. "The occupation forces from
the sky bomb and kill innocent civilians. On the
ground, Taliban and these warlords deliver fascism. As
NATO kills more civilians, the resistance to the
foreign troops increases. If the U.S. government and
NATO do not leave voluntarily, my people will give to
them the same lesson they gave to Russia and to the
English who three times tried to occupy Afghanistan.
It is easier for us to fight against one enemy rather
than two."
Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig
every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter
covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the
Middle East. He has written nine books, including
"Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the
Triumph of Spectacle" (2009) and "War Is a Force That
Gives Us Meaning" (2003).
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