Pubdate: Thu, 16 Mar 2006
Source: Burlington Times-News (NC)
Copyright: 2006 The Times-News Publishing Company
Contact: http://www.thetimesnews.com/letter-to-editor/splash.php
Website: http://www.thetimesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1822

AFGHANS BRING 'DEATH TO AMERICA' IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

The Afghanistan drug story was certainly confusing to us here in the 
small pond in Alamance County -- the story that the Afghanistan 
government (such as it is) wants to encourage drug lords to invest in 
the country's economy.

If we understand it correctly, the Taliban, a hated and despised gang 
of thugs that fly airplanes into buildings and kill people in the 
name of their religion, suppressed the poppy business in Afghanistan 
before the U.S. military arrived. Once the Taliban was out of there, 
poppy production rose markedly.

Now poppies are simple flowers. In fact, a basic paper version is 
given away by veterans in front of department stores in America to 
commemorate soldiers who have served the country. The poppy is also 
the source of a mighty powerful narcotic -- heroin.

Small-fry Afghan farmers crop poppies, drug lords process and sell it 
as heroin, primarily to the west. That's America. Planetary addicts 
use about 90 percent of Afghanistan's heroin. Since addicts find it 
tough to keep a job, they usually resort to stealing to get money to 
pay drug dealers who purchased from the source. That drug money -- 
estimated at $2.8 billion a year -- is deposited by these drug lords 
into banks primarily in the United Arab Emirates, a land where the 
United States is not on much of anyone's party list, a land where we 
can hear the echoes of "Death to America" float across invisible 
borders. We don't know how the drug lords are spending their wealth, 
but you have to figure some of it goes to arms and ammo to protect 
their investments. In other words, more thugs to protect a very 
lucrative business. So, it's no secret to anyone that the country is 
making a good living from dealing death, either by needle or firearm. 
And we really weren't even surprised that the Afghan government wants 
that money to stay at home. What does surprise us is that anyone in 
America, from the lowest addict to the highest leader, would think 
anyone in Afghanistan gives a flip about American well-being.

Drugs will not be stopped. The allure of massive profits and the 
addiction to money and the drug itself that is nearly impossible to 
break can only fuel the moral bankruptcy of a government that is 
either too greedy or too afraid of challenging these drug lords for supremacy.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman