Afghanistan became the globe’s leading narco-state under NATO

by Max Parry .. from.. dissidentvoice.org.. shared with thanks

The War in Afghanistan: The real “Crime of the Century” behind the Opioid Crisis

Afghanistan became the globe’s leading narco-state under NATO occupation which accounts for more than 90% of global opium production that is used to make heroin and other narcotics.

US to Blame for Spike in Opium Production in Afghanistan ...Under the previous Taliban administration the heroin industry was severely curtailed where they ruled. Indeed there have been allegations that the US occupation was influenced by the secret drugs lobbies as much as by a desire for revenge for the 9/11 bombings, which in reality had little to do with Afghanistan or the Taliban.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), poppy cultivation in the Islamic Republic increased by 37% last year alone.

Taliban alliance sweeps the country as corrupt US administrators flee with their corruption and drug money..

At the same time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that heroin use in the U.S. more than doubled among young adults in the last ten years, while 45% of heroin users were said to be hooked on prescription opioid painkillers as well.

Yet the impression one gets from mainstream media is that the vast majority of smack on America’s streets is coming solely from Mexican cartels, a statistical impossibility based on the scale of the U.S. user demand in proportion to the amount of hectares produced in Latin America, when the majority is inevitably being sourced from a country its own military has colonized for two decades.

Tasked With Combating Opium, Officials Profited and….

Where opium harvesting really flourished preceding the NATO invasion was under the border lands controlled by the Northern Alliance, the same coalition of warlords and tribes later armed by the C.I.A. to oust the Taliban, while United Nations observers even acknowledged the success of the Sharia-based ban until its ouster.

Beginning in 2001, Afghanistan was instantly transformed into the chief global heroin supplier entering Turkey through the Balkans into the European Union and via Tajikistan eastward into Russia, China and beyond.

Making the U.S. Safer for Opium Dealers, Terrorists and….

In the midst of the U.S. exit, there is a general agreement that the days are numbered for the Kabul government as the Taliban continue to make gains. Still, the question remains :—

..if the self-described Islamic Emirate and its asymmetric warfare is to blame for the opium boom, then where on earth did the billions NATO allocated for its counter-narcotics strategy go?

Under the smokescreen of supposedly protecting the only means of subsistence for the impoverished locals, NATO forces in reality safeguarded the lethal product lining the pockets of the Afghan government.

Why else would the Western coalition continue to overlook what is now the Taliban’s main source of revenue.

Although there has yet to be the equivalent of a Vietnam or Nicaragua-level disclosure of incontrovertible evidence incriminating Uncle Sam in the Afghan drug business, the answer may lie with who is set to replace them.

A Defense Department report from earlier this year indicates that at least 18,000 security contractors remain in the war-torn country, where outsourcing to private military companies like Academi (formerly Blackwater) has increasingly been relied upon in the 20-year war, including for futile drug enforcement measures.

As the services of guns-for-hire with a penchant for human rights abuses grew in the lengthy conflict, oversight and accountability diminished to the point where the Pentagon is unable to accurately keep track of defense firms or what mercenaries are even doing in the country.

Hundreds of billions of US armaments abandoned to Taliban.

Meanwhile, private security services made a fortune being contracted out for the abortive anti-drug effort just as Afghanistan set records in opiate production.

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However the fear that the mercenary contractors, with US and drug money and allied with US paid jihadi militias from Turkey, would remain in Afghanistan in the Kabul area now seems to be false. The elite have already moved out with their ill gotten billions, mainly to the Gulf, and the whole army and security industry is surrendering in a wholesale fiasco to the triumphant Taliban.