NATO commander: Afghanistan drug raids imminent

[Turborama]

Source: AP

MUNICH – In an effort to strike at a key income source for Taliban militants, the top NATO commander said Sunday that operations to attack drug lords and labs in Afghanistan will begin within the "next several days."

Gen. John Craddock, who also heads the U.S. European Command, also said that the U.S. and its allies are making progress in their efforts to fill the need for more troops, equipment and intelligence gathering in Afghanistan. He, however, would not disclose any specific commitments he got this weekend as world leaders met at a security conference here.

NATO defense ministers, during a meeting last fall in Hungary, authorized troops in Afghanistan to launch the drug attacks, but there had been questions about whether allies would be willing to follow through. Money from Afghanistan's booming illicit drug trade has been blamed for pumping up to $100 million a year into the coffers of resurgent Taliban fighters.

"Activities and actions will occur soon that will be helpful," Craddock told reporters. "We've got to get started."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090208/ap_on_re_eu/nato_afghanistan

---

1st time I've ever heard a warning in advance of a drug raid, dumb.

[balantz]

1. Getting the public used to more activity there. n/t

[msongs]

2. so how's it going so far for the 'war on drugs' in the US? sheesh, they can't do it here why

would they think they can do it over there?

Msongs

[saigon68]

16. It's easier to kill guys wearing towels on their heads there

[SpiralHawk]

3. While the Bush family republicons were running the show

Drug productions and profits in Afghanistan skyrocketed.

What's up with that?

[KeepItReal]

6. The troops in Afghanistan had no orders to wipe out poppy fields

I've watched BBC videos showing NATO forces patrolling through poppy fields.

Apparently they were not allowed to take out the drugs because the farmers had no other income source and would turn against the NATO forces.

My thinking was that if a lot of the farmer's poppies ended up in the hands of Taliban for opium production and sales, aren't the farmers already against NATO?

[EFerrari]

7. They're against being shot by the Taliban, more likely. n/t

[KeepItReal]

9. Good point. This is a jacked up situation

<eom>

[JohnyCanuck]

12. According to a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan,

the poppies (or the drugs and money derived from them) ended up in the hands of Karzai's ministers.

Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time
By CRAIG MURRAY (former British ambassador to Uzbekistan)

SNIP

That is about the only good thing you can say about the Taliban; there are plenty of very bad things to say about them. But their suppression of the opium trade and the drug barons is undeniable fact.

Now we are occupying the country, that has changed. According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60 per cent. This year will be even bigger.

Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations.

It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.

How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government, the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.

When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons,especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance, to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-469983/Britain-protecting-biggest-heroin-crop-time.html

[Idealism]

4. Craddock is a BushCo plant, he won't survive much longer

NATO officials have already gave him the finger

http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2143822.ece/Nato_high_commander_forced_to_back_down?service=Print

[saigon68]

17. He needs to be fired

[Idealism]

21. Affirmative.

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Never forget Cheey's role in the drug trade in Afghanistan

In March, 2001, Cheney went to Afghanistan and basically brokered a "deal" with the Taliban, giving them $245m in "Aid"
with part of the "terms of the deal" being that they would stop growing poppy crops, (an additional $43 mil. immediately pledged by Bush admin during this visit jsut for that promise of cutting back on the opium fields.)

Yeah...Cheney made a "deal" with the Taliban.

Have a nostalgic read here:
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/wonderful/afghanistan.php

[ohio2007]

14. Afghanistan is again the world's leading heroin supplier. ( to Iran )

from your bowling for columbine link;

Afghanistan retakes heroin crown

Monday, 3 March, 2003,
Russian guards patrolling Afghanistan's 1,340-kilometre border with Tajikistan, the main transport route for Afghan drugs to European markets, have seized 1.5 tonnes of heroin already this year.


snip


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2814861.stm

I wouldn't be suprised if Biden were to ask for
Iranian narco police input on what could be done better on the illegal border crossings. Iranians have crossed into Afghanistan in the past chasing smugglers. It's just not reported all that often on how big a problem Iran has with the heroin addicts.


jmo
Talking to Iran shouldn't be limited to the nuclear and Israeli issues they have on their front burners.

[leftstreet]

15. A few years ago the BBC did several reports on addiction

(and AIDS) in Iran and Afghanistan. Startling stuff. But you never hear much about it now.

[goforit]

20. Part of this Deal was to place a pipe line from the Caspean Sea through Afgan-

Pakistan and to the Arabian sea. The Taliban denied Cheney access and Cheney threatenned to "carpet bomb" them.

[robinlynne]

8. my thoughts exactly. you are warning them because?

[acmavm]

10. Oh dear. This always goes over so well when they do this stuff.

:sarcasm:

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Orders were: "NOT TO KILL MORE THAN 10 CIVILIANS AT A TIME"

Edited on Sat Feb-07-09 09:53 PM by Ichingcarpenter
A RUMSFELD MAN



Nato high commander forced to back down


On January 30, general Bantz John Craddock gave up. On that day, the Nato high commander retracted an order calling on troops fighting in Afghanistan with Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to attack drug traffickers and facilities. Many of Craddock's comrades found the order unpalatable - it explicitly directed Nato troops to kill those involved in the drug trade even if there was no proof that they supported insurgents fighting against Nato or Afghan security forces.

General Egon Ramms, from Germany, who heads up the Nato command centre responsible for Afghanistan in Brunssum, the Netherlands, expressed his displeasure with the order as did US general David McKiernan, who heads up the Nato command in Afghanistan. Both felt that the order violated ISAF rules of engagement as well as international law.

Craddock was extremely upset by the resistance from his subordinates, insiders report. They say he even considered sending a written demand to Berlin that general Ramms be relieved of duty. In the end, though, the US general bowed to the inevitable and made the change demanded by both Ramms and McKiernan. Instead of being given a free hand against drug traffickers, Nato troops will continue to be allowed to attack only those drug traffickers with provable ties to insurgents and terror groups. The change, a Nato spokesperson said on Wednesday, means that the incident is over.

Spiegel reported on the Craddock order - and the disagreement within Nato leadership - on January 29. Since then, Nato has made every effort to play down the dispute and attempted to portray Craddock's "guidance" as little more than a proposal to be commented on by his subordinates. Such a procedure, however, is hardly common practice within the Nato chain of command. At the operational level, no orders are issued - there are only "guidances" and "directions," explains retired four-star general Dieter Stöckmann, who served as Nato deputy high commander in Mons, Belgium until 2002. Speaking from his experience, Stöckmann said "a guidance is not a recommendation. Rather it is clearly a binding order."

The contentious contents of Craddock's paper unleashed dismay throughout the alliance and across the political spectrum. "Afghan people are not chickens whom one could hunt whenever one wanted to," commented Afghan foreign minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.

"This does not reflect the decision made by the defence ministers during their meeting in Budapest and does not represent the positions of the member states," Robert Farla, spokesman for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin says. "We hold the view that one can destroy targets that have a relationship with the Taliban, and not all drug traffickers have such a relationship." Dutch troops are stationed in the province of Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan.


But it may soon be Craddock himself in the hot seat. Already, there are those in Nato headquarters in Brussels, as well as in the alliance's military headquarters in Mons, who are speculating about "the last days of Craddock." Hardly anyone believes that the "hard-core Rumsfeld man," as some refer to him, will make it to the end of his term of service this summer. Craddock is seen as a leftover of the George W. Bush administration. It is seen as likely that his defeat in the just-ended dispute among Nato generals will speed his departure.

His successor would likely be marine general James N. Mattis, currently Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in Norfolk Virginia.

http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2143822.ece/Nato...

Afghan villagers complain of the increase in the deaths of relatives who were mistakenly killed during military operations carried out by the Americans and their allies, such as the one carried out recently in Masamut, a village in the eastern Afghan province of Laghman. The US army announced that it had "eliminated" 32 Taliban insurgents. However, survivors claim that 13 civilians had been killed during the search for a Taliban commander. In the eyes of many Afghans the former liberators have long become ruthless occupiers.

Nato general Ramms made it perfectly clear in his answer to General Craddock that he was not prepared to deviate from the current rules of engagement for attacks, which reportedly deeply angered Craddock. The US general has already made his intention known internally that he would like to relieve any commander of his duties who doesn't want to follow his instructions to go after the drug mafia.

Back in December, central command in Florida, which is responsible for the US armed forces deployment in Afghanistan, yet again watered down provisions in the rules of engagement pertaining to the protection of civilians. According to the new rules, US forces can now bomb drug labs if they have previous analysis that the operation would not kill "more than 10 civilians."

http://www.nrc.nl/international/Features/article2136041...

[Bragi]

13. It would be a war crime...

Occupying troops are prohibited under the rules of war to attack criminals in the occupying country unless there is proof that the criminals are supporting the enemy.

In the case of Afghanistan, most of the drug lords support the Bush-installed Karzai government. The Taliban have never been friendly to the drug lords, and vice versa.

This whole move by the US NATO leaders was just an attempt by the US to extend its fabulously successful "war on drugs".

It will be interesting to see if Obama allows his gung ho generals to take on the drug lords. If he does, then the rest of NATO will not support this, and the US may soon find itself all alone in its Afghan quagmire.

- B

[Ikonoklast]

18. The drug flow will never be stopped. Never.

The entire private contract prison industry in this country which BushCo, KBR, Halliburton, and many other major players are involved in will never let that happen.

God forbid the "War On Drugs" ever ceases. Waaaaay too much profit at stake to really eradicate the misery of heroin addiction.

Where would all the 'black budget' money come from to fund the covert empires of the CIA?

Hell, KBR is building some of the best roads Afghanistan has ever seen.

And the finest heroin in the world rides out on them.

[JohnyCanuck]

19. Speaking of the war on drugs,

Here is a link to a documentary by Dutch television about the war on drugs and how it is entirely ineffective in suppressing the drug trade, but very effective as a money maker for cash strapped municipalities and police departments, and now for the growing prison industrial complex as well. It starts off in Dutch for a minute or two and then switches to English for the remainder of the documentary. (1hr 32min)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458&ei=buWOSYLJOoqsrAKL3_C8Cw&q=dnw+war+on+drugs

[Ikonoklast]

22. When you have some spare time to read, go here:

http://www.dunwalke.com/introduction.htm

Catherine Austin Fitts will scare you with an insider's perspective on a great many things, and touches on the effect of the so-called 'War On Drugs' and the for-profit private prison industry, who runs it, who protects it, and who profits from it.

If what she writes is even remotely the truth, it is sickening.

Thnx for the link.

[ConcernedCanuk]

23. USA can't handle the drug trade in it's own country

.
.
.

What makes them think they can handle it in someone else's country?

OH - RIGHT

THEY CAN BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF THEM . .

Roh Roh USA tough guys . .

shit . . .

[tom_paine]

24. I think it was a "Mafia" style warning, myself. The Bushies are taking over the business.

Probably not directly, and I am certainly not intimating our military will be doing anything but the violence, unaware of what they are REALLY doing.

Just a guess, but this "stupid" warning, which on the surface makes no sense, warning the people to be raided before the raid, is letting to local growers know to deal with their Bushie-allied Warlords and make those kickbacks up the chain.

That money is needed for Bushie Slush Funds and Domestic Black Ops.

Poppy growers who do not agree, will be raided by the US military...unaware that they are playing strongarms for Bushie "Mafiosi" through "their" Warlords - bet there's lots of double-dealing on both sides, there, as both Bushies and Taliban are petty thugs at heart.

I feel bad for the poppy growers who will bravely refuse to give the Bushie Warlords a piece of the action.

The Bush Gang is going to hit them...AND HARD! Craddock's last hit for his Bushie Masters.

It could very easily be this or something like this.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaGreen]

25. Trying to win War on Drugs and GWOT at the same time?

:rofl:

I am not mesmerized by military uniforms, like some around here. Generals got us all killed in previous wars, and I see that they haven't changed a bit since Vietnam.