AFGHANISTAN:
OPIUM AND THE 'LOTUS EATER'
What I strongly suggest is an explanation why this year again the headlines will be "Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record." And why an opium destroying fungus - called 'Lotus Eater' - is not allowed to be used by the CIA and their managers.
Henk Ruyssenaars
FPF - 21 September 2008 - How is this possible in a country supposed to be fully under control by the US and NATO's Coalition of the Killing? With a US air force and drones overlooking the whole opium crop in - what they call - their 'war theater'? So the competition can be killed (terrorists!) and is kept out of the very profitable business too? While NATO troops and other mercenaries keep the roads nice and open, which they call 'restructuring'.
"And just who really has the capability to refine, transport and distribute this drug? The CIA and associates are the only ones with that kind of capability and junkies pose no threat to the powers that be. Ever hear of the Boxer Rebellion in China when the people tried to stop the Brits from opiating their people to pacify them?
Same old story. Wolves in sheep's clothing would be an appropriate term, though wolves are hardly bad creatures and much more noble and honest than those who use hard drugs to finance their dirty wars and obsession for power. Of course keeping it illegal by-passes any oversight and garners huge profits as it corrupts everything around it." - rainbowhawkmx in a comment.
But, according to the - now by the murderous military machine dominated - CIA: Any disruption of the drug trade has enormous implications for Afghanistan's economic and political stability. Although its relative strength in the overall economy has diminished as other sectors have expanded in recent years, narcotics is a $2.6 billion-a-year industry that this year provided more than a third of the country's gross domestic product.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told Congress: "Right now the issue is stability. . . . Going in there in itself and attacking the drug trade actually feeds the instability that you want to overcome." And Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency agreed: "There's a real conflict, I think."
YOU KNOW WHAT THE CONFLICT IS? BILLIONS IN PROFIT!
That's why an opium destroying fungus called 'Lotus Eater' is not allowed to be used by the CIA and their managers. The opium/heroine trade is just too profitable. The Afghan government has prohibited the aerial herbicide spraying used by U.S. anti-narcotic programs in Latin America. Instead, opium poppy plants in Afghanistan are destroyed by tractors dragging heavy bars. But only 38,500 of nearly 430,000 acres under cultivation were eradicated this year.'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/tvzgq
CODE NAME 'LOTUS EATER'
"In the 1990s, a major U.S. university, working closely with an U.S. Army biological warfare lab, developed a genetically altered fungus code-named 'Lotus Eater.' The Lotus Eater fungus is specifically designed to attack the opium poppy plant and nothing else.
The Lotus Eater fungus is reported to be so effective that one potent strain could eliminate almost all the global opium crop within five years of its release. A second, less potent strain was also developed which could wipe out a single season of poppy crop exposed to the fungus, but it could not reproduce itself beyond a short lifetime.
It is here, after the two strains were developed, that the story of the Lotus Eater turns upside down. The Clinton administration suddenly withdrew all research monies, closed the university site and took the fungus strains away. No further research, or development has ever been recorded. In 2002, the U.S. military reportedly offered to use the Lotus Eater fungus on Afghan opium crops. The plan was to use U.S. control of Afghan airspace to seed the fungus from highflying C-130 Hercules transports.
YET THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION REPORTEDLY TURNED DOWN THE IDEA.
According to high-level intelligence sources, the plan to end opium production inside Afghanistan was nixed by the CIA. The reason given was quite simple. Apparently, there are several large factions inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, friendly to the U.S., that directly depend on funding from opium. These factions threatened to overthrow the Afghan and Pakistani governments if they were not allowed to continue trafficking heroin and opium.
The specter of a nuclear-armed Pakistan being run by radical opium gangs put the Lotus Eater plan on hold. The CIA reportedly noted that if Lotus Eater was released into the poppy fields that several Southeast and Southwest Asian governments would fall. The consequences of a Lotus Eater attack directly effected corrupt elements inside the Russian and Chinese armies as well as the intelligence service inside Pakistan. The disruption of trade could even start a world war in Asia.
It is here that our dark tale ends. The opium and heroin trade continue to flourish. The poppy fields continue to fuel the bank accounts of radical terrorists and addict millions in its wake.
The most powerful nation on earth is a helpless giant, unable to stop the devastating trade even when armed with the ultimate weapon.
We have become the Lotus Eaters."
[end quote] - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3hr4l9
Big Pharma, the very profitable and huge, mostly criminal pharmaceutical industry, has the 'solution' for what also the United Nations calls a 'problem' and which they propagandize now: they'll buy all the opium in Afghanistan, which has 93% of the world market, and turn it into - according to them - 'very much needed' anesthetics...
Just think: what's the price of a liter of oil, and what's the street value of a kilo of heroine?
Henk Ruyssenaars
Google 'selection' - Web Results 1-10 of about 2,460 for HR + Afghanistan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gvtyz
HR's POINT OF VIEW: THE SORRY STATE OF WORLD AFFAIRS - TinyUrl.: http://tinyurl.com/5tz8uz
IT'S DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT, WHEN YOUR GOVERNMENT IS WRONG'' - VOLTAIRE
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3z3r6
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/2wegpc
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
-0-