Reply #51: Afghanistan (Drugs) History 1978-2004

[DrDebug]

Mohammed Dauod Khan

End of Monarchy
On 27 April 1978, a coup staged by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Kahn. Daoud, five years earlier, had overthrown the monarchy and established a republic, although he himself was a member of the royal family(12) and a descendent of Ghensis Khan. When the Daoud regime had a PDP leader killed, arrested the rest of the leadership, and purged hundreds of suspected party sympathizers from government posts, the PDP, aided by its supporters in the army, revolted and took power. (1)

US eyes Afghanistan
When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in January 1979, the United States lost its chief ally and outpost in the Soviet-border region, as well as its military installations and electronic monitoring stations aimed at the Soviet Union. Washington's cold warriors could only eye Afghanistan even more covetously than before.(1) On July 3 President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the Mujahideen, opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. (2)

US want Regime Change
According to admissions by Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA director Bill Casey, efforts were being made to destabilize the country. (7)

"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on 24 Decempber 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."

We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. (7)

Osama bin Bush

In September 1979 Noor Mohammed Taraki was ousted and replaced Hafizullah Amin. Amin tried to gain Pakistani or American support and refused to take Soviet advice. (3)

Soviets don't like the new regime
The Kremlin was unhappy with Amin, who personally insisted that Moscow replace its ambassador. (4) The Soviets repeatedly referred to Amin as a "CIA agent", a charge which was greeted with great skepticism in the United States, (5) however enough circumstantial evidence supporting the charge exists so that it perhaps should not be dismissed entirely out of hand. (1)

Osama bin Laden was selected for the head Al Qaeda by Turki al-Faisal al-Saud, head of Saudi intelligence 1977-2001, currently Saudi ambassador to the UK. Osama bin Laden and al-Faisal have reportedly maintained close ties to this day. The CIA / ISI had requested a Saudi prince, but al-Faisal couldn't find any that was willing. (8)

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
The Soviet Union invaded in September 24, 1979 and assassinated Amin. (1)

Heroin for Guns
Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. (10) In this regard, McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 - a much steeper rise than in any other nation" (9)

Poppy in Afghanistan

CIA assets controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of ISI (Pakistan Intelligence) operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests. (9)

U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies 'because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. (9)

Bye Bye Soviets
The Soviets was forced to withdraw 10 years later by anti-Communist mujahidin forces supplied and trained by the US, Saudi-Arabia, Pakistan, and others. The Communist regime in Kabul fought on until collapsing in 1992. (2)

Rise of the Taliban
Fighting subsequently continued among the various mujahidin factions. This eventually gave rise to a state of warlordism. The chaos and corruption involved in warlordism in turn spawned the rise of the Taliban in reaction. The most serious of this fighting occurred in 1994, when 10,000 people were killed from factions fighting in the Kabul area. Backed by Pakistan and her strategic allies, the Taliban developed as a political/religious force and eventually seized power in 1996. The Taliban were able to capture 90% of the country, aside from Northern Alliance strongholds primarily in the northeast. The Taliban sought to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. The Taliban gave safe haven and assistance to individuals and organizations that engaged in terrorism, especially Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. (3) Since 1999 the Taliban started to restrict Opium trade which fell from 4,600 tons in 1999 to 185 tons in 2001. (11)

September 11, 2001

Taliban leave Afghanistan

US invasion of Afghanistan
On October 7, 2001 (within one month after September 11) the United States and allies take military action in support of the opposition. In late 2001, major leaders from the Afghan opposition groups and diaspora met in Bonn and agreed on a plan for the formulation of a new government structure that resulted in the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) on December 2001. After a nationwide Loya Jirga in 2002, Karzai was elected President. (6) In 2002, Opium production was back to a pre-war level of 3,400 tons. (11)

National elections were held on October 9, 2004. Over 10 million Afghans were registered to vote. Most of the 17 candidates opposing Karzai boycotted the election, charging fraud; an independent commission found evidence of fraud, but ruled that it did not affect the outcome of the poll. Hamid Karzai won 55.4% of the vote. He was inaugurated as president on December 7. It was the country's first national election since 1969, when parliamentary elections were last held. (6)

Sources:
1. http://members.aol.com/bblum6/afghan.htm
2. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafizullah_Amin
4. Selig Harrison, "Did Moscow Fear An Afghan Tito?", New York Times, 13 January 1980, p. E23.
5. New York Times, 15 January 1980, p. 6. The newspaper stated that the CIA- accusations appeared to have been dropped by the Soviets at this time, perhaps because they were embarrassed by the incredulous reaction to it from around the world. But it was soon picked up again, conceivably in reaction to the Times' story.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan
7. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
8. http://www.countercurrents.org/ipk-saleem150703.htm
9. http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
10. Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
11. http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_opium_survey_2002.pdf (PDF document)