User:Paulrevere2005/Afghanistan opium production keeps skyrocketing while the administration says
[[1]]Thomas Friedman's recent NY Times OP-ED piece; {{editorial}} "No Mullah left behind" stating that the "Bush administration is financing both sides of terrorism" dealt with the issue of petro dollars finding their way into enemy hands. Another similar "aiding the enemy"issue has popped up.
![[1]](http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1575000/images/_1579446_factory150.jpg){kind=link}
In 2002 superbowl ads paid for by the Bush administration,the message was sent to americans that "Drugs Fund Terrorists."[[2]]
![[2]](http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38156000/jpg/_38156218_heroin150.jpg){kind=link}
Meanwhile the annual reports put out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime show that Afghanistan opium production has been skyrocketing,up over 1,000%, since the coalition invaded and took over effective military control of the country. The Nov.2004 UNODC report shows a 64% increase(from 2003) in Afghan acreage producing the drug and a 22% increase in export value for the year(2.8 billion(US dollars).
Doug Wankel, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official who is point man for the U.S. counternarcotics initiative at the American Embassy in Kabul, says the opium industry is "financing terrorism. "It's financing subversive activities. It's financing warlordism. ... And if it's a threat to the government of Afghanistan, it's a direct threat to the national security interests of the United States."Robert Charles, U.S. assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, predicted a record opium poppy cultivation covering a cumulative area just less than 500 square miles — about the size of the city of Los Angeles.
This irony is nothing new for the Bush team and they have been asked about it regularly for years; "You ask what we're going to do and the answer is, `I don't really know,'" Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently."-(Washington Post Oct.3,2003).
Sources; http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afghanistan_opium_survey_factsheet_04.pdf
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