Russia Criticizes U.S., NATO Over Afghan Drugs *wink* *wink*
March 18th, 2010If the squeals out of Russia about drug trafficking are real, and I have serious doubts about that, why not mention this bridge?
In August 2007, the presidents of Afghanistan and Tajikistan walked side by side with the U.S. commerce secretary across a new $37 million concrete bridge that the Army Corps of Engineers designed to link two of Central Asia’s poorest countries.
Dressed in a gray suit with an American flag pin in his lapel, then-Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the modest two-lane span that U.S. taxpayers paid for would be “a critical transit route for trade and commerce” between Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Today, the bridge across the muddy waters of the Panj River is carrying much more than vegetables and timber: It’s paved the way for drug traffickers to transport larger loads of Afghan heroin and opium to Central Asia and beyond to Russia and Western Europe.
…
All along the Afghan-Tajik border, smugglers for years have thrown sacks of heroin over the Panj River, waded across when the water is low, set up flotillas of car tires and used small ferries or footbridges.
The U.S.-financed bridge has made drug trafficking even easier, truck driver Mohammed said with a toothy smile: “You load the truck with drugs.”
The ferry that used to operate at Nizhny Panj carried about 40 trucks a day. The bridge can carry 1,000 vehicles daily.
Why not send a television crew there and turn it into a media circus? Why not tempt some poor bastards with a bit of rat meat and few crates of AK-47s to place high explosives on the support columns of that bridge?
Russia is an overt mafia state. During the Soviet era, the black market was controlled by the KGB. Putin was involved with the KGB from 1975 until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Now, anyone that matters in Russia has to kiss Putin’s ring. Russian journalists who expose the regime for what it is are routinely killed.
Vladimir Putin in KGB Uniform
Look at the atrocities Russia carried out in Chechnya and more recently the swift kneecapping of Georgia. Look at the unending political assassinations in Russia. When that regime draws a line in the sand: Watch out.
If Russia actually wanted to stop the proliferation of heroin within its borders, do you honestly believe that it wouldn’t turn that bridge into a pile of rubble, if just to send a little message to the U.S. run cartel?
Some participants in the Afghan opium orgy are making a bigger killing than others. My guess is that all this boo hoo out of Russia is just Vlad posturing for a bigger cut of the action.
Related: MI6 Covert Operation in Afghanistan Related to “Farming and Irrigation Techniques”
Via: AP:
Russia’s envoy to NATO has sharply criticized the alliance’s battle with drug trafficking in Afghanistan, saying it has led to a surge in heroin smuggling that is endangering Russia’s national security.
In an interview late Thursday, Dmitry Rogozin also highlighted the lack of cohesion within NATO, saying Moscow is worried about declining public support in Europe for the war.
Russia “is losing 30,000 lives a year to the Afghan drug trade, and a million people are addicts,” Rogozin said. “This is an undeclared war against our country.”
“We are obviously very dissatisfied with the lack of attention from NATO and the United States to our complaints about this problem.”
For years, the allies tried to eradicate poppy crops, but that resulted in a boost to the insurgency as impoverished poppy farmers joined the Taliban. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s new policy of trying to win the support of the population means that these farmers are now left alone, enabling them to tend crops that produce 90 percent of the world’s heroin.
Last month, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said Afghanistan’s cultivation of opium — the main ingredient in heroin — is unlikely to rise or fall dramatically in 2010, after a major drop over the last two years. But even during 2008 and 2009 Afghanistan was producing far more opium a year than the world consumes, the Vienna-based office said.
Russia claims that drug production in Afghanistan has increased tenfold since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in 2001. Smugglers freely transport Afghan heroin and opium north into Central Asia and Russia, and also on to Western Europe.
Rogozin pointed to Washington’s inconsistency in its attitude to international drug trafficking saying that in contrast to Afghanistan, it was waging a drug war in Colombia because that was the primary source of cocaine that goes to America.
“But in the case of the heroin which goes to Russia, they are doing practically nothing,” he said. “This is not how you treat your friends and partners.”
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the alliance understands Russian concerns, and that the problem affects Europe as well. The most important part of solving the drug trade was helping to defeat the insurgency, and NATO has 120,000 troops trying to do just that, he said.
Appathurai noted that the U.N. cites the Marjah region, where NATO has just completed a large-scale offensive, as one of the world’s foremost opium-producing areas. “By helping re-establish government control there, we are making a substantial contribution to the counter-narcotics effort,” he said.
“We would welcome increased support from Russia for our overall effort and (NATO) has made very specific requests to Moscow which they are considering,” Appathurai said.
Russia contributes logistical support for NATO- and U.S.-led operations by providing a vital land and air transit corridor for the shipment of supplies to the international force. It also services Soviet helicopters and organizes training for the Afghan anti-drug police. But Moscow always has ruled out sending ground troops.
During the Cold War, the Soviets provided military support for the secular Afghan government, and deployed over 100,000 troops to defend it against religious fundamentalists being financed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and other Western nations. About 15,000 Soviet soldiers died in the 10-year war in the 1980s.
“Today we are helping them fight the same fanatics whom they supported against us 20 years ago,” Rogozin noted.
He expressed concern over weakening support for the nine-year war from America’s European allies, “who ended up in Afghanistan without really knowing what they were doing there.”
“The result is falling public commitment to the war,” he said.
Last month, the Dutch government collapsed because it tried to comply with a NATO request to keep its 2,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan. The Dutch crisis, and growing public opposition in other European countries to further involvement in Afghanistan, has sparked fears that other NATO nations might also pull out their troops.
“NATO is still dominated by the United States, and European allies still fall in line just to keep the alliance going, (by) participating in U.S.-initiated military adventures, even though their national interests in doing so are far from clear,” said Ian Buruma, a professor of democracy at Bard College in New York.
“It is hard to see how this can continue for much longer.”
In a related development, NATO’s top official said Russia’s military doctrine — which still identifies the Western military alliance as a top threat — is outdated and “does not reflect the real world.”
Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO will “never invade Russia.” He has repeatedly called for the two to forge a “strategic partnership” and cooperate more closely in Afghanistan, anti-piracy operations, and countering terrorism and drug trafficking.
this AP article quotes Ian Buruma. that definitely caught my attention.
AP is generally a US propaganda outlet, but i don’t think Buruma is a run-of-the-mill CFR rent-a-quote. he speaks his mind. i don’t agree with a lot of his views, but he is usually woth a listen.
as for the poppies, very pretty in the springtime. gangsters and prohibition go together like gin and tonic. cheers, old chap!
or even vodka and coke!
I agree with you, with Russia’s huge drug and alcohol addiction problem, if Putin really wanted to make an impact, he has the means…I think that if he had sober, cognizant population, it would eventually tire of the oligarchy/mafia rule of the country and stir up trouble, causing even more ‘Chechnya’s’ everywhere, which would be ugly, expensive and embarrassing on the international stage…better to have a bunch of drunks and heroin addicts, quietly dying off under bridges and in back alleys…no muss, no fuss!