US Is Picking & Choosing The Afghan Opium Trade Winners

By Steve Hynd

Via Derrick Crowe, I see that accused war criminal and narco-warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum has rejoined Karzai's government from exile in Turkey. In 2001, according to Physicians for Human Rights, he and his men stuffed thousands of prisoners into metal containers, suffocating most and shooting any who survived. Because he was on the CIA's payroll, the Bush administration discouraged any investigations even after the mass grave of the victims was discovered. Karzai trusts him to deliver more than 1 million Uzbeck votes in Thursday's election.

Yet recently the US military said it was going to hunt down fifty drug traffickers believed to be allied to the Taliban, leaving even supporters of the occupation going "wtf?".

Derrick writes:

Dostum�s return to a warm embrace by the U.S.-backed government in Kabul shows us that:

• The U.S. is not fighting to support a pro-human-rights regime in Afghanistan. Dostum is a war criminal and warlord, and he exemplifies the rot at the heart of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA).
  
• The U.S. is backing a narco-state in Afghanistan. Dostum is only one of many drug kingpins and their bought-and-paid-for puppets in the GoIRA. By backing this government comprised in large part of drug traffickers (including Karzai�s brother), we�re confirming what many have warned about for some time now: the U.S. is picking and choosing winners in the global opium trade by eliminating Taliban-connected opium traders while helping to shore up the political power of opium traders in the Afghan government.

And has this Rethink Afghanistan clip on the Karzai government's senior narco-warlords.

These Karzai-linked narcolords make the lion's share of the profit from the $3 billion a year Afghan opium trade. The Taliban and its affiliates, according to Congress, only pulls in a measly $70 million a year. Given that amount of money washing around, and Dostum's choice of asylum country during his sort exile, it's worth wondering about Jonathan Landay's charge that US officials are actively involved in Afghan corruption and about connections to the whistleblowing of Sibel Edmonds. Such connections might help explain why the U.S. is so interested in clearing the field of competition for these narcolords.