WASHINGTON - The rise in opium traffic in Afghanistan has been called a threat to the progress the country has otherwise been making. A leading article in the New York Times on Tuesday notes that last year Afghanistan provided an estimated 87 percent of the world's illegal opium crop. Apart from the damage that opium, transformed into heroin, inflicts on users worldwide, the trafficking also lines the pockets of armed militia leaders and corrupt local officials, giving them the means to resist President Hamid Karzai's efforts to promote security, development and democracy. [continues 318 words]
WASHINGTON: If the current poppy crop in Afghanistan is allowed to be harvested, it will put an estimated $7 billion in the coffers of the country's warlords. While a bumper poppy harvest is expected in Afghanistan in the new year, a debate has erupted within the Bush administration on whether the United States should push for the crop's destruction despite objections from the Karzai government, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. Some US officials advocate aerial spraying to reduce the crop, warning that if harvested, it could flood the West with heroin, fill the coffers of Taliban fighters and fund terrorist activity in Afghanistan and beyond. They estimate the haul could earn Afghan warlords up to $7 billion, up from a record $2.2 billion in 2004. With the January planting season approaching, the State Department is asking Congress to earmark nearly $780 million in aid to Afghanistan, the world's largest opium producer, for a counter-narcotics effort that would include $152 million for aerial eradication. [continues 382 words]
Rush Limbaugh is America's Big Mouth. This scourge of all men, ideas and things liberal has been spewing vitriol on talk radio for two decades. His show is broadcast by 600 stations across the nation and his fans and followers number over 20 million. He earns $200 million a year. His show, interspersed with commercials, some of which he does in his booming voice, is broadcast most days of the week and is an unending harangue against the liberal victim or idea of the day. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Limbaugh, whom his fans calls Rush, attacked Clinton in the most lurid language, urging Congress to impeach him. Much to Rush's regret, Clinton survived, but so sick was the president of the abuse thrown at him by Rush and his phone-in listeners, that he complained about it publicly, something sitting presidents seldom do. This gave Rush more ammunition to blacken Clinton and heap even more abuse on him. [continues 593 words]
