11/30/06
"...'There are many cases where honest prosecutors or police chiefs try to do something about corruption, and they say they receive phone calls from very high officials in Kabul saying to leave the people alone,' said Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan. ...
'It should focus its efforts to remove big drug money from the political process,' he said. 'But instead what we have done is put big drug traffickers in positions of power, failed to take or support strong actions against them while we attack the livelihoods of small farmers and laborers through eradication, and they then turn to the Taliban or warlords for protection.' ..."
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"...Over the past five years, the British-led counter-narcotics strategy had penalised the country’s poorest farmers and strengthened networks of organised crime, consolidating the trade among a tiny elite of traffickers..."
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"...This year's record harvest of 6,100 tons of opium will generate more than $3 billion in illicit revenue - equivalent to almost half of Afghanistan's GDP. Profits for drug traffickers downstream will be almost 20 times that amount.
...High-level collusion enables thousands of tons of chemical precursors, needed to produce heroin, to be trucked into the country. Armed convoys transport raw opium around the country unhindered. Sometimes even army and police vehicles are involved. Guns and bribes ensure that the trucks are waved through checkpoints. Opiates flow freely across borders into Iran, Pakistan, and other Central Asian countries.
The opium fields of wealthy landowners are untouched because local officials are paid off. Major traffickers never come to trial because judges are bribed or intimidated. Senior government officials take their cut of opium revenues or bribes in return for keeping quiet. Perversely, some provincial governors and government officials are themselves major players in the drug trade..."
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11/19/06 - 11/20/06
(If cellulosic ethanol really is 'right around the corner', then it better hurry up!)
11/15/06 - 11/18/06
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