[R-G] Afghanistan: U.S. Escalates the Illegal Drug Industry

[Anthony Fenton]

Afghanistan: U.S. Escalates the Illegal Drug Industry

by John W. Warnock

Global Research, February 25, 2009

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12460

It is common knowledge that Afghanistan remains the primary source of  
the world’s supply of opium and heroin. A recent United Nations’  
report claims that three quarters of the world’s heroin comes from the  
provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. But there is also recognition that  
poppies are grown in almost all of the country’s 34 provinces.

The western media argues that most of the production of illegal drugs  
is being done by the Taliban or that the Taliban is protecting the  
farmers. The fact that there are well known drug lords in the  
government of President Hamid Karzai, and many are members of the  
parliament, is usually ignored. Yet the Asian press carries photos of  
"narco palaces" in Kabul and describes the local "narcotecture." The  
Afghan population is well aware of the close ties between the drug  
lords and the government.

Of course this is quite embarrassing to the U.S. government, which put  
Karzai in office and created the present Afghan constitution and  
system of government. Thus Hillary Clinton, nominated for Secretary of  
State, created quite a shock when she referred to Afghanistan as a  
"narco state" in her testimony before the U.S. Senate.

Forgotten in all this is the key role that the U.S. government played  
in the development and expansion of the illegal drug industry in  
Afghanistan. It goes back to the decision made in July 1978 by the  
administration of Jimmy Carter to give aid and assistance to the  
radical Islamists in their rebellion against the leftist government of  
the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

The CIA and the Afghan Drug Trade

The U.S. government devoted billions of dollars to the proxy war in  
Afghanistan. Most of this was funneled through the Pentagon’s infamous  
Black Budget, secret funds for secret operations. In 1981 this budget  
was estimated at $9 billion but rose to $36 billion by 1990. The CIA  
obtained cash to buy weapons and other equipment which was then  
channeled to the Islamist rebels.

In the Afghan operation the CIA provided cash to the Pakistan  
government, primarily through its accounts with the Bank of Credit and  
Commerce International (BCCI), best known for laundering illegal drug  
money. As John Cooley notes, "The CIA already had a history of using  
corrupt or criminal banks for its overseas operations." In the 1980s  
the CIA and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency were using the  
BCCI for covert operations. First American, in Washington, D.C., was  
one of the CIA banks of choice, and it had been acquired by BCCI.

BCCI had close links to the Pakistan government. During the Afghan  
jihad BCCI officials actually took control of the customs house at the  
port of Karachi where shipments of arms were sent by the CIA to  
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). They made  
cash payments to the ISI, part of which were payoffs, but large sums  
were also needed to finance the transportation of armaments to the  
Afghan border and beyond. As Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf reports, much  
of the CIA aid came in the form of cash. This was used to purchase  
hundreds of trucks and thousands of horses, mules and camels, in  
addition to the materials needed to build the training bases for the  
mujahideen fighters.

The CIA would inform the Pakistan government about the shipments. When  
the armaments and supplies were landed in Karachi they came under the  
control of the National Logistics Cell of the Pakistan army and the  
ISI. They trucked the materials north to the various bases. On the way  
back the trucks carried opium and heroin for export from Karachi,  
mainly to the United States. Some of the heroin factories were  
directly under the control of the ISI, and the whole operation had the  
support of Pakistan General Fazle Haq, the protector of the industry.  
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had appointed him the military commander  
of the Northwest Frontier Province. He was also directly involved in  
the heroin trade and laundering money through the BCCI.

The Islamist Drug Lords

Many of the key Islamist commanders and warlords were heavily involved  
in the illegal drug industry. One was Yunas Khalis, a brutal commander  
who boasted of the slaughter of prisoners of war as well as defectors  
from the PDPA government. Based in Helmand province, he spent much of  
his time fighting with other commanders over the control of the poppy  
crop and the roads and passes from the poppy fields to his seven  
heroin laboratories at his headquarters in Ribat al Ali. As Alexander  
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair point out, at this time around 60% of  
the crop was produced under irrigation in the Helmand Valley,  
developed with a grant from USAID. This is still largely true today.

The biggest producer of heroin was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the primary  
recipient of CIA funds, who maintained six heroin factories at Koh-i- 
Soltan. He was in competition with another favourite commander of the  
U.S. government, Mullah Nassim Akhundzada, for control of the poppy  
crop produced in the Helmand Valley. The cash from the sale of the  
opium and heroin was channeled through accounts in the BCCI.

In the north, poppy cultivation and heroin production were primarily  
under the control of commanders Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ahmad Shah  
Massoud, both of whom were key allies of the U.S. government,  
particularly after the fall of the Marxist government in 1992. The  
fruits of this industry were exported through the Central Asian  
Republics via Kosovo and Albania and into Europe. It was estimated  
that this source accounted for around 60% of the European market. To  
this day commanders in the North, now in the Karzai government and the  
parliament, engage in production and trade. But this is overlooked by  
the North American media.

It was not only the U.S.-backed radical Islamists who were in the drug  
business. One of the key players was Sayad Ahmed Gaylani of the  
moderate National Islamic Front, who was very close to the exiled King  
Zahir Shah. The Soviets argued that Gaylani produced and exported more  
illegal drugs than Hekmatyar.

Afghan poppy production tripled between 1979-82, and according to  
figures from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, came to dominate the  
heroin market in the United States and Europe. The DEA reported that  
by 1984 51% of the heroin supply in the United States came from the  
operations of the U.S. allies on the Pakistan border. The situation  
remains the same today. It is estimated that the illegal drug industry  
presently accounts for around 50% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic  
product.

John W. Warnock is author of Creating a Failed State: the US and  
Canada in Afghanistan. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2008.

References:

Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. 1998. Whiteout: The CIA,  
Drugs and the Press. New York: Pluto Press.

Coll, Steve. 2004. Ghost Wars: the Secret History of the CIA,  
Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10,  
2001. New York: Penguin Books.

Cooley, John. 2002. Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, American and  
International Terrorism. London: Pluto Press.

McCoy, Alfred W. 2003. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the  
Global Drug Trade. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books.

Potts, Mark, Nicholas Kochan and Robert Whittington. 1992. Dirty  
Money: BCCI - the Inside Story of the World’s Sleaziest Bank.  
Washington, D.C.: National Press Books.

Scott, Peter Dale. 2007. The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the  
Future of America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Yousaf, Mohammad and Mark Adkin. 2004. Afghanistan - The Bear Trap:  
the Defeat of a Superpower. Havertown, Pa.: Casemate.