Friday, February 13, 2009

UK WAS THE BIGGEST DRUG RUNNER IN 19TH CENTURY? WHO IS IT TODAY AND WHY?

OPIUM IS THE ECONOMIC ASSET TODAY - CENTRAL ASIAN GAS IS THE ECONOMIC ASSET OF TOMORROW.

This article in 3 parts:

1. Economics of Opium trade (Historic + Current context)
2. State of economy in the US and Europe
3. Conclusion


PART 1.
ECONOMICS OF OPIUM - A SHORT HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
While the Dutch introduced Indian opium in tobacco pipes to the Chinese in 1700, it's the British which through East India Company in 1750 took control of the opium trade in India by cultivating in the states of Bengal first and then Bihar.


EAST INDIA EMBLEM:
By 1767 the British East India Company's import of opium to China reaches a staggering two thousand chests of opium per year. By 1793 the British East India Company establishes a monopoly on the opium trade. All poppy growers in India were forbidden to sell opium to competitor trading companies.

In 1817, Britain sold 240 tons of opium into China. Within ten years, the level had risen to 750 tons, and by 1837, just prior to the Opium War, it exceeded 2500 tons.


TYPICAL CHINESE OPIUM DEN

Read Amitav Ghosh's SEA OF POPPIES to get a better insight into the opium world.


R. Mukerji (in Rise and Fall of the East India Company) argued that there were compelling economic imperatives that drew the European India Companies into the path of imperialism. He pointed out that although monopoly rights assured the India Companies of the exclusive privileges of buying and selling, it did not guarantee that they could buy cheap. For that, political control was essential.

A major problem for the East India Company was that their profits were in direct conflict with those of their British-based competitors. Under these circumstances, as long as the profit motive was paramount (which it was), the Battle at Plassey, and the Opium Wars could be seen as logical outcomes of circumstances where continued profits by legal and honorable means were simply not possible. But, had the East Company comprised of "Gentlemen Traders" as some historians have claimed, they could not have switched so easily from trading in Indian Textiles, to trading in Opium for Tea which, in modern language - would surely be described as a form of "drug-running"!

Had the traders of the East India Company been "men of honour", denied the right to profitable trade, they would have simply gone bankrupt, as so many do in the world of business!

Throughout much of the 19th Century the principal British export to China by this trading company was opium, grown in British colonies in India and Bengal. Opium exceeded in value the total of all other export trade commodities the British were selling in China, despite that opium was illegal under Chinese law.
The trade enriched the British at home and supported their colonies abroad. Hence The issues that sparked the Opium War were economic.

Opium wars is a different subject altogether, however the main points we can infer from the above:

1. The British used opium to profit. If they had not, they would have gone bankrupt. – and even “GOD COULD NOT HAVE SAVED THE QUEEN. THE OPIUM DID.”

2. If the British went bankrupt, they could not keep their colonies intact, or expand and maintain hegemony around the globe and expand their empire.

3. UK became the first official drug runner in the world and a good one at that.


Let us remember the above 3 points and fast forward to present and land in the country called Afghanistan.

OPIUM ECONOMIC - PRESENT:

1. Afghanistan produced 6700 tons of opium in 2006, 8200 tons in 2007 and 7700 tons in 2008. On average, the world demand of opium-based narcotics, including heroin, is only half of this production. Where is the rest of opium going? Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers."

2. British and American forces – this includes all kinds of Americans such regular forces, CIA, Socom and contractors – have been buying and storing all the surplus opium. (See the movie American Gangster to figure out US military complicity in narcotics trade).

3. This report gets credence from the fact that about 70% of all opium production in Afghanistan comes from Helmand province, an area under the direct control of the British and the Americans.

4. The Taliban, when they were in control of Afghanistan, nearly eradicated the opium cultivation in Afghanistan. This was started again and in “enormous quantities” once the British & American troops took control of Hemland province.

See graph below : In 2001 the Taliban nearly eradicated opium from Afghanistan.


5. The Americans who wanted to put in Unocal pipelines when the Taliban were in power put Hamid Karzai as the President of Afghanistan. Incidentally, Hamid Karzai was a consultant to UNOCAL.

6. The biggest drug baron in Afghanistan happens to be Ahmed Wali Karzai. Incidentally, he happens to be the brother of Hamid Karzai. One of the many incidents : When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Jan later told American investigators

7. Mr. Izzatullah Wasifi, a brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was arrested by the U.S. authorities from Caesars Palace, California, along with his wife Fereshteh Behbahani on July 15, 1987, for the trafficking of high quality heroin. Wasifi was sentenced for three years and eight months while his wife was sentenced to three years probation. However after the formation of Karzai government in Kabul, Izzatullah Wasifi was made the Governor of Farah province of Afghanistan and later, last year, his brother, Hamid Karzai, appointed him as the all powerful Chief of Afghanistan’s General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption with responsibilities to prevent the Opium growth and Heroin production and its illicit export.

Keeping in view Mr. Wasifi’s past, it is nothing less than stunning to notice that the person who a few years ago was a drug trafficker is today Afghanistan’s chief anti-drug trafficking officer. Wasifi used to be an anchor between the Afghan drug barons and the Western drug buyers and used to run a drug trafficking operations.

8. As per DEA, Dawood Ibrahim is among the top 3 drug runners in the world today. He is most likely in the business together with the people who are mentioned in point 1 (people who are stockpiling the opium). Note that the Americans and British are not at all interested in catching Dawood. And for that matter – neither is India. (yes, neither is India – a host of politicians cutting across political lines are in Dawood’s monthly payout list).

Read this article : WHY THE CIA DOES NOT WANT INDIA TO HAVE DAWOOD?

Also read this article: Dawood Ibrahim fits the billing for one of Cheney’s “unsavory” intelligence sources.

In the above article it is mentioned: "DAWOOD Ibrahim, according to our sources, played an important part in Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s “shadow war” after 9/11. It was Ibrahim, for example, who used his criminal network to track down the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Ibrahim’s men were also used to provide protection for Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai in Pakistan and Afghanistan, especially when the Afghan frequented gay brothels in Pakistan. Ibrahim’s enterprises, called “D-Company,” ensured that U.S. supply ships in the Arabian Sea were protected from attack, that the U.S. embassy in Islamabad was not targeted for terrorist attack, arranged for reasonable port fees to be assessed for U.S. ships in Dubai in support of the Iraq war, that U.S. sailors and contractors in Dubai were protected, and that all the kickbacks for Cheney’s Halliburton and other U.S. contractors were properly laundered through Dubai banks. Ibrahim’s network also ensured that the land route from Karachi to Afghanistan allowed U.S., Indian, and other nations’ goods to move into the landlocked country unimpeded."

9. Incidentally the Russian intelligence said the money and logistics for 26/11 came from Dawood. The contract to kill Ajmal Kazav has been given by ISI to Dawood. And the inference one can draw is that Dawood is working with the British and American intelligence on the drug trade – albeit circutatiously. After all, even after the economic downturn who has the money to buy opium at today’s prices and hoard it? It is the US.


DAWOOD IBRAHIM:



Keep the first 3 points in mind and after reading the 9 points above, what do you think is happening? If the UK did it in 19th century, can the US + UK do it in 21st century? After all, how badly screwed is the western world financially?

Answer is YES
, they can do it. The American did it in 20th century too.. (See American Gangster - the movie based on true story).

PART 2:
But why will they do it? It is because the economy of the western world and US is badly in a tailspin downwards. Here is a picture :

From my article on November 1st:

The official version of US debt which is USD 10 trillion. The actual US debt, including "invisibles" or off balance sheet transactions is closer to USD 58 TRILLION. This includes the staggering USD 1 trillion credit card debt that will most likely see the collapse of Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. The sub-prime mortgage losses will be closer to USD 3 trillion and not USD 1 trillion.

Such is the extent of "greed" that is boggles the mind. This can be seen if one sees the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) markets. The CDS market is worth a staggering $ 62 trillion up from USD 900 billion in 2000. (Note: USD 1000 billion = 1 trillion). Which means that this (CDS) Wall Street speculation racket is 5 times the size of all holdings in NYSE (New York Stock Exchange).

If this debt is averaged out: EVERY SINGLE HOUSEHOLD IN THE US OWES A DEBT OF USD 500,000 ( half a million dollars) when their average yearly salary is USD 40,000.

This will lead to austerity measures, where the US citizen is going to opt for positive savings, for the first time (instead of feeding his consumption by borrowed money). MORE SAVINGS means less DISPOSABLE INCOME. This will lead to LESS CONSUMPTION, threatening to pull the US economy down further.

To kickstart the economy, the US Govt will have pump in huge Investments, CROWDING OUT private investments. Lower interest rates will give the catalyst for the investments. This is the begining of a worldwide recession that is expected to last until at least late 2009 (Paul Krugman is saying 10 years). Keep an eye on 3 things:


1. CDS Market : It is currently at US $ 62 TRILLION. The higher it goes, longer will be the pain.

2. PRICE OF GOLD: If the price of Gold is US $ 700 or begins to go down, then US will be in DEFLATIONARY PERIOD.

3. DOLLAR INDEX : If this index holds above 70 - the US can prints its way out of the recession (pretty much what it had been doing). However, if the index falls below 70, future growth will be killed as this will lead to higher interst rates and inflation (hence no crowding out effect as govt will not be able to raise cheap debt)


To avoid a long recession, deflation - the US is fighting on many fronts.

Bretton Woods I gave rise to NATO - the hedge against a Russian invasion. Bretton Woods I became a political program and not an economic one. When loans to fund Western Europe's re-development failed to stimulate growth - the LOANS became GRANTS - aka the MARSHALL PLAN. Today , the US cannot afford any Marshall Plans.

The question naturally arises on the primacy of the dollar. Can EURO take over. The answer is NO. The EURO is only a DECADE old and is not backed either by i) SOVREIGN TAXING POWER or by ii) A CENTRAL BANK WITH VAST AUTHORITY. Relying on a currency (EURO) that is dependant on the will of 15 disparate countries DOES NOT MAKE FOR A RELIABLE RESERVE CURRENCY. Hence CHINA, JAPAN, GERMANY, FRANCE etc will ensure that the PRIMACY OF THE US DOLLAR REMAINS.

As on Feb’09 – the US Fed is pumping in money into the US economy in double digits clearly opening it to hyper inflation if things go out of hand. However as stated in point 3 above, as long as the dollar index holds above 70 the US can print its way out of trouble.

BUT: "The Fed is sending a message that it will print money to an unlimited extent until it starts to see the economy expanding," William Poole, former president of the St. Louis Fed said.

Well, it's about time that Ben "Printing Press" Bernanke lived up to his moniker. With a Fed rate cut to zero percent, the ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) era begins. But Japan has already tried that and all they got was a "lost decade" of deflation, and a yen carry trade that contributed to a bunch of grand global distortions after that.

A US commentator stated: The USDX has crashed below the critical level of 80 in what looks like a classic if not very pronounced head-and-shoulders formation. That has pulled gold prices up to $850, which is also a critical level, being the famed Jan 1980 resistance level. We are balanced on the proverbial knife edge now, with gold and the US dollar sitting at over 20-year resistance/support levels.

This is the trigger event that many in the contrarian community have been waiting for. The community has called for US hitting zero interest rates years ago in advance of the fact. What happens next is the trillion-dollar question. The deflationists are pointing at Japan, while the inflationists are pointing at Zimbabwe. The community consensus for now seems to be Japan-style deflation for the short term, *followed by* Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation further out.

Let me present : Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute.

I may not believe all that Celente says but he is hard to dismiss as another crackpot doomsdayer. He comes with serious “credibility”.

He is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events. The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November 2007 that the following year would be known as "The Panic of 2008," adding that "financial giants (would) tumble to their deaths," which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.

He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent. (WOW – 90%)


His interview in Fox News


Fox is a neo-con channel and Celente is anything but a neo-con. American pay a huge premium to background for interviews. By interviewing Celente in a pub, Fox is trivializing the message Celente gives. All this is, of course, deliberate.

Now, if what Celente says has a probability of 10% - then it’s a huge financial conundrum that US and Western world is looking into. (we will not look at effect on China and India to complicate this article).

Also read The Telegraph article of 16th Feb, written by KP Nayar: DESOLATE & DEVASTATED IN AMERICA.

PART 3:
Suffice to say, does the opium trade and US & UK complicity now make “economic” sense?

Hence Opium is the economic asset of today, the Central Asian gas is the economic asset of tomorrow (Central Asian gas has been covered extensively in Great Game and Ultimate Game articles, earlier).

The US & UK are not going to move out of Afghanistan, come what may and see the collapse of their empire exacerbated.

33 comments:

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

@RAY LIGHTNING:

This article based on your query to me. I was thinking of writing this after a bit of study - but since you asked - thought of writing it now.

Have kept the Taliban and drug trade out of this - as you can see, they are marginal and "contractors" in this.

Anonymous said...

This may not be related, just take with a pinch of salt:

I read it in a related publication that the Indian Godman Sai Baba based in Puttaparthi says that the INR would be as strong as the USD today.

-- --

Anonymous said...

BuA
===

The Dawood and US connection is "very" interesting. More like a large producer (USA+UK) needing a large marketing set-up (Hamid Karzai's brothers) and a large seller (Dawood).

India, as usual, is dreaming of US help in nabbing Dawood. Ha !!

How nicely it all fits.....

Anonymous said...

Very interesting article indeed and gives one enough fodder to ponder on.

SM

Ray Lightning said...

BuA,

I think the circumstances of British Empire are different from those of today. The British Empire (and colonial siphoning of wealth) was a necessity at that point in history to permit further economic growth of Britain. The British had direct political control over India and introduced a variety of trade barriers and import-export laws to devastate Indian economy for the sake of the British one. However, they couldn't manage to obtain a similar level of political control on China : so trading in opium was a big necessity to do the same thing. With India and China being the biggest economic powers of that time, their suppression and feeding off their economies was essential for Britain to grow.

The situation has changed considerably today. The world economic product has been growing exponentially. Critically, the world already possesses sufficient capital to fuel further industrialization. This capital need not be stolen from other people as in the days of the empire. This is why we have seen (a) the marshall plan reconstruction of Europe (b) the rapid economic growth of the Asian tiger economies (c) the rapid growth of China and India today.

If the global economy tumbles and we enter a recession or depression, that will be purely due to crimes on the stock-market and mismanagement of wealth. Sure, the USA has suffered from a lot of such crimes. But it is not impossible to recover from them (btw, that guy Gerard Centele seems to be a rabid anti-democrat who just wants to create trouble on the right wing Fox news. He might be sa smart guy, but take anything that he says with a pinch of salt.)

Now in the current world, most of the users of Opium are "inside" the USA and Europe. So engaging in opium trade will not provide any benefits for the USA in easing its deficit. I agree that the Americans have been spending far more than they earn (and the global currencies being tied up to the US dollar and that 70% rule helps them in doing so). But the trade deficit of USA is largely a result of importing energy reserves.

In today's world, energy is the true currency. With world already possessing enough capital for industrialization (though this capital is largely controlled by the banks in the west), the only missing ingredient for industrialization is energy. The countries which are rich in energy reserves are bound to have a stable currency from now on.

American drug cartels (or even the intelligence) might engage in opium cultivation, stockpiling and marketing as an alternate means of securing finances.. especially in an economic downturn where they don't receive as much from the govt. But it is unlikely that this is a state policy of the USA or the UK.

About Afghan government's involvement in the drug trade, it is probably true but it is unlikely that the biggest portion of the drug cultivation and trade is being done "under Afghan govt supervision". The Taliban are probably larger players. Your mention of Taliban suppressing opium cultivation is of doubtful accuracy. All accounts indicate that they are engaged in drug trade, and increased it today to secure alternate means of financing their operations.

Ray Lightning said...

About Hamid Karzai, I think he was a CIA man (his being an employee of that gas pipeline company proves the point). But I think he has grown too big for the CIA to supervise. Afghan government has been showing independence in its affairs with the USA .. and has been engaging regional players such as Russia and India.

This is not being liked by the USA very much, and all this talk of badmouthing the Afghan govt or trying to replace Karzai could be coming from sources inside American think-tanks.

Anonymous said...

COO of a top US investment bank:

It is so alarming that Total Fed Credit last week actually went down by a gigantic $149.1 billion in ONE FREAKING WEEK (OFW), instead of increasing in the same OFW, which it must do if all of this deficit-spending is going to be accomplished!

And as if this $149 billion in OFW was not enough to make your heart start fibrillating and make you start puking your bloody guts out in fear, this is, I remind you, Total Fed Credit, which is that magical, out-of-thin-air money that appears, thanks to the Fed arbitrarily creating it in the accounts of the banks, ready for lending to somebody at huge multiples of the amount of additional credit originally deposited in the banks.

In short, we’re talking HUGE amounts of money! HUGE! Huger than huge! FREAKING HUGE!

And what makes it all the scarier is that this TFC, even with this $149.1 billion drawdown, still totals a hefty $1.84 trillion, which is DOUBLE what it was last year, which demonstrates a huge, huge, HUGE increase in the monetary base, which is now at $1.7 trillion, which is ALSO double what it was last year! Yikes!

We’re freaking doomed!

Anonymous said...

DAWOOD HELPED CIA FIND OUT KILLERS OF DANIEL PEARL ..............

???

Anonymous said...

Pls do n article bout zaid hamid and all his big talk folow up to P1 -- now all his myth about hindu plot etc have been busted

Anonymous said...

Actually the Taliban only started coming down hard on opium poppy cultivation from 2000 onwards, and they were really effective at it - by 2001 Afghanistan's opium production was negligible. In 2001 Taliban was routed and that saw cultivation rising during the consecutive years because apparently the allied forces at that time had no drive to reduce it as their priority was to wreck the Taliban and establish a strong hold over the country. Although the Americans currently are promoting all kinds of drives to reduce poppy cultivation (such as free seedlings of other crops to farmers) the output of opium has increased. Why can't the Americans do what the Taliban did in one year? They don't want to.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

Ray,

Let me try to reply to the point raised:

Ray: Circumstances are different today. The world already possesses sufficient capital to fuel further industrialization.

Me: Sure circumstances have changed, because times have changed. However, the world does not possess sufficient capital – it has a shrinking capital base. Have you noticed how a relatively prosperous country – ICELAND – simply tanked as a result of the economic meltdown? The economic crisis is yet to play its final hand – and then the gravity of the economic maelstrom is yet to manifest. People with money are holding on to it and delaying projects and hoping that the “paper currency” they are holding will be worth the same post the crisis and not be used as Zimbabwean hyper-inflated trash currency. So, NO Ray – the world does not possess the “will” to go in for further industrialization other than those that are absolute necessary. Expansion plans and green-field projects are mostly on hold.

Ray: In the current world, most of the opium users are in USA and Europe. So, engaging in opium trade will not provide any benefit in for the USA in easing its deficit.

Me: As above, the first line (basic premise) is correct. The conclusion is wrong. I had written about it in Great Game etc – let me repeat it in brevity. US & UK are buying off the opium from Afghanistan growers and hoarding it – only 50% of opium grown in Afghanistan a year is the yearly sales. The rest is for future sales, when the opium fields are eradicated sometime in the future, shooting the sale price of opium through the roof. Even then, the current 50% that is finding its way to the market – the sales dynamics has changed. Now, a far smaller portion is going to US & Europe on the “for profit” route to subsidize what the US & UK are doing elsewhere. This elsewhere are the following countries : RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA (RIC) and a few smattering of countries in the region. In these regions, the US+UK are pushing through “opium” at rates lower than the “farm-gate” prices it pays to the farmers in Afghanistan. That the final price in these countries are the same is due the fact that the middlemen (drug pushers) are making super-normal profits in the bargain.

Question is : why is US +UK pushing in opium at “not for profit” rates to RIC etc. The answer is two fold : 1) Get a larger population hooked onto the substance so that in the near future, when poppy fields are going to set ablaze, the price of raw opium will sky rocket. At that point, UK+US will have the largest hoarded quantity of opium in the world and will make enormous profits to help their economy (and also to fund black operations as funds from government will have dried up).

And 2) getting a large population hooked onto drugs helps to keep the RIC economies and its health and allied infrastructure to burst at the seams thus delaying more important infrastructure projects that could have helped these economies by imposing an enormous social cost on these economies.
Ray : Countries that are rich in energy reserves are bound to have a stable currency from now on.

Me: In an ideal world – Yes. Currency is pegged to the national wealth of reserves (energy, minerals, human capital etc). If that be the case, Azerbaijan, Venezuela and Iran will have surely stable currencies and rich in future. But the world is not ideal and you have competing large countries (India, China, Russia, Japan, USA etc) vying for “finite” energy sources of today. I emphasize the word, today, as we are not going to discuss thorium, Helium – 3 etc, which are next gen energy sources. Hence, these energy eaters will compete and “screw up” the idealness of the world as they have in the past. The idea has been to make their currency stable at the cost of countries that are energy rich. And truly, I do not see that change in the near future – in short, I cannot see the ideal world yet.

If China, Russia, India and US sat across the table and thrashed out their requirements of gas from Central Asia, then as per agreed norms, the gas sales could be carved out. The selling nations of Central Asia will give equitable sales rights and excavation rights to these buying countries accordingly. These selling countries which are the smaller Central Asian nations + Iran + Russia, in this scenario will be able to have stable and strong currencies. What an ideal situation? Can you really see Unocal, Halliburton of US telling competing companies of India, Russia, France and China to come and set up shop in Central Asia? No way Ray – stakes are too high. Idealness is for the communists and even then they are too corrupt these days.

Ray : It is unlikely that the drug trade could have US + UK government involvement.

Me : Correct. It cannot have “official” government involvement. However it can have the “unofficial” government involvement. Which means – agencies not even tangentially connected with the “official” UK+UK government will be involved in this trade. This has been like this and will continue to be like this.

Look at Pakistan for instance. Do you for a moment feel that Gilani (PM) or Zardari (Prez) of Pakistan were in the loop of 26/11? Or do you think that ISI used “deniable operatives” of LeT to carry out 26/11 to achieve military objectives? In that case, can you blame the “official government” which is the elected government? You cannot. Hence, can you say Pakistan was officially involved? You cannot. But did elements in Pakistan carry out 26/11? Certainly, yes. Opium trade or Nuclear trade will never have connections to official government. That does not mean that the power centres within the state are not involved. In that sense – “power centres” within US+UK are involved in the drug trade.

Ray: Taliban suppressing opium cultivation is of doubtful accuracy. They are engaged in drug trade and increased it today to secure alternate means of financing their operations?

Me: The Taliban (when it was a united force) did nearly eradicate opium cultivation across Afghanistan (see above figures for 2001). However, after the US invasion, the Taliban is no longer a unified force and they are splintered into many factions and many masters – some changing masters by the day if it suits their fancy, purse, and motive.

The logistics of buying 8000 tons of opium in a country and selling 50% of that across the globe cannot be done by a fractious Taliban. It needs a centralized command and control unit. True, some Taliban and stronger than others and they are involved in the drug trade. The officials in Afghan government are clearly in the business. But I will maintain my stance, the Taliban are bit players in this business – for fistfuls of 100 dollar bills and fancy SUVs they are in business.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

@MAX.

That is the fundamental point you hit upon - why have the Americans not eradicated opium if the Taliban could. It's because they do not want to. And one can hence infer why.

My question to you. What is your take on this credible story that US had officially used Dawood to track Daniel Pearl's killers. And the US use Dawood to keep their assets safe in Pakistan.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

Hi,

Read this article by KP Nayar on 16th Feb: DESOLATE & DEVASTATED IN AMERICA.

LINK:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090216/
jsp/frontpage/story_10542302.jsp

Anonymous said...

This article is came close to the truth but left out an important part.

It might come as a surprise but the real reason for America invading Afghanistan was the declaration by Mulla Omar to ban poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

This deprived the CIA of huge amounts of money as Afghanistan has in terms of dollar value in opium what SAudi Arabia has in oil.

Please visit the site of world poppy cultivation and you will be amazed to see how the graph hit rock bottom after decree by Mulla Omar and shot up after American Invasion

Anonymous said...

Am the same Anon as above.

THE ARTICLE also misses out on the following:

The Dawood angle is likely that, despite all the noises that are made in New Delhi, India really does not want Dawood back.

The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lays a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly—alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.

Be that as it may, it is nonetheless true that there is hardly anyone with “power and authority” in Mumbai— and that includes Shiv Sena supremo Raj Thackrey and mainstream politician and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, among many other political luminaries, law-and-order bigwigs, and almost the entire group of tax-evading Mumbai movie moguls—who is not on the take from this drug-pushing, murderous creature, now under the wings and threats of the Pakistani Inter-Services Security (ISI), British MI6, and the CIA.

But, then again, like the terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, et al., creatures like Dawood would remain active as long as drugs are grown aplenty to serve the interests of the powers-that-be, and to fill the coffers of bankrupt banks. That is how Dope, Inc. survives and flourishes. The deaths of common citizens are “collateral damage” that the powers-that-be ignore, by diverting attention in such ways as blaming others and creating war-like situations.

This is exactly what has been promoted through a pantomime orchestrated by New Delhi and Islamabad. Instead of addressing the devastating role of thousands of tons of opium, produced annually in Afghanistan and distributed all over, fostering terrorists in Pakistan and bringing misery to India, New Delhi and Islamabad chose to flex their muscles, providing the terrorists and jihadists alike, with a rare opportunity to portray themselvesas “patriots.” Would bringing troops to the India-Pakistan border eliminate terrorism? Did it ever achieve this objective? Would anybody with an iota of sense believe that? Then, why do it? Why create a situation in which some mischief-makers could create an incident leading to armed confrontations and the deaths of many, while solving nothing? Why?

The Coverup

The answer to that question is basically the unwillingness of political leaders to protect their citizens, and instead, to kowtow to the powers-that-be. The 8,200 tons of opium, when a large chunk of it is converted into heroin, generates a lot of cash.

It could be as high as a couple of hundred billion dollars when cut, re-cut, and sold to addicts in Russia, China, India, England, and elsewhere in Europe.

It brings in about $100 million for the Taliban and other brands of terrorists, or jihadis, or Hindu Tamil Tigers, or Shiv Sena—you name it.

That amount, generated annually, is enough to arm and train hosts of terrorists stretching from Chechnya, to Urumqi, to Mumbai.

When one group of terrorists is exposed, it is converted to another brand. It is also a boon for the powers-that-be, that opium money is acceptable to all “devoutly religious” terrorists, be they Islamists, Hindu fanatics, or Sikh Khalistanis. That money has no color.

It is also known that the global financial system, which is the quintessential Anglo-Dutch Liberal system designed in the 18th Century to loot the colonies, and imposed on the war-ravaged world in 1944 after President Roosevelt’s death, is presently in its death throes.

The City of London is bankrupt, Wall Street is bankrupt, and the only cash that “could” keep the collapsed financial system going is DRUG MONEY.

This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of the British and runs his operation through British-controlled Dubai.

Drugs come into Dubai by means of Dawood’s “mules,” protected by the ISI-MI6; and in containers which carry equipment sent to Dubai for “repair” from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. British troops control the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, where 53% of Afghanistan’s gargantuan 8,200 tons of opium were produced in 2007.

The drugs are converted to cash in Dubai, where Dawood maintains a palatial mansion, similar to the one he maintains in Karachi. Dubai is a tax-free island-city, and a major offshore banking center. The most common reason for opening an offshore bank account nowadays is the flexibility that comes with such an account, and expatriates can particularly benefit from an offshore bank account, as it will likely allow them to manage their international financial commitments with ease.

With the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is the latest free-trade zone there, flexible and unrestricted offshore banking has become big business. Many of the world’s largest banks already have a significant presence in Dubai—Abbey National Offshore, HSBC Offshore, ABN Amro, ANZ Grindlays, Banque Paribas, Banque de Caire, Barclays, Dresdner, and Merrill Lynch all have offices there. And as drug production continues in Afghanistan, and bankruptcies galore take place worldwide, more banks will surely “find” Dubai.

Drugs and Offshore Banks

Besides Dubai, most of the offshore banks are located in former British colonies. Exceptions include Cyprus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Dominica, Cape Verde, and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. But the vast majority are situated in former British colonies, and all are involved in money laundering: Legitimizing cash, generated from drug-sales and other smuggled goods, for the “respectable banks,” is the watchword of these offshore banks.

Arguably the most important of the Caribbean offshore financial centers is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory run by a royal governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II. The Caymans are mainly a mail drop and regulation-free zone, a place where hot money is welcome and few questions are asked.

It is well known in law enforcement circles that the dope trade would quickly choke on its own cash were not a significant portion of the global financial system devoted to money laundering. The offshore centers in the Caribbean were set up to facilitate the Central American drug trade, and have expanded with it.

Overseeing the Caymans financial system are a number of imperial operatives. The royal governor, Stuart Duncan Jack, is a knighted Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority is run by Timothy Ridley, who was made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. Richard Rahn, a member in the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was an economic advisor in the 1980s to President George H.W. Bush; now he heads the European Center for Economic Growth and is a member of the oligarchical Mont Pelerin Society.

In other words, the drugs that Dawood’s mules carry are doing a yeoman’s service for the Anglo-Dutch global financial system, as well as for the terrorists who are killing innocents all over the world. Why make waves about that, New Delhi ponders.

Informed p.

Anonymous said...

@ Now that India is deeply
involved with Afghanistan
using those famous 21 consulats
are they not trafficking drugs ?
those Indian soldiers !
and that Karzai can be
hindering it.
CIA is totally trading the drugs
and has disputes over it with
Karzai. Talibans being a
serious obstacle for CIA and
Indian combined scheme to trade
drugs, and get is cashed alone.

Ernst Zander Austria

Ray Lightning said...

BuA,

In computer science, we believe in the principle of occam's razor. That is, we prefer the theory which explains the facts with the least number of assumptions.

USA could very well be involved in drug-running and its secret services and army be running independent cells which are not answerable to the political command. Such theories might have their merits, but it is difficult to digest them without more data.

The global financial system is indeed a mess, and it is a huge mystery where all the capital is flowing into. As "informed p." has explained earlier, a lot of this mystery involves island trade paradises which convert black money to white. Some of this nefarious network might also deal in illegal businesses such as drugs, arms deals or human trafficking. Investigating such deep theories require a lot more data, which unfortunately is not sufficient.

BTW, the earlier guy from Austria seems to be a Pakistani hooked onto the idiotic brass-tacks program.

Anonymous said...

There came Z. Harris / zaid zaman u cannot hide buddy this time as austrian

Anonymous said...

sorry 4 bothering u brother but this zaid harris / zaid hamid puppet is back and writing his shit over again. again here: http://bengalunderattack.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-kashmir-response-from-very.html

we should oppose this moronic behavior by this dumb paki pig as a lesson to anybody else who will take for granted the freedom on this blog. As such I will let u know of his nonsense apart from in his zaid hamid topic and please remove it.

take care.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

@RAY:

The reductionist approach is excellent in crimes committed by ordinary criminals as clues can be approached clinically making Hercule Poirot say: "If that is the only plausible answer left, then however improbable, it must be true."

"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem," roughly translated as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Much as that approach can theoretically extended in cases of nations indulging in covert warfare, one has to take help of "coincidences" and "other inflexion point" analysis as incidences in warfare or terrorism do not follow a normal bell curve.

If you take my analysis, and add MAX + Informed P (who by the way it seems knows a lot more on this subject than he has let on) - one can draw inference for sure and see if incidents that occurred can have a positive correlation coefficient in the scatter diagrams of events. I am betting, it is.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

To Anon at February 16, 2009 12:21 PM:

Thanks for pointing it out - have erased Z Harris and his various alter ego's comments.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

@Ernst Zander = Zaid Harris

Its not only you, but Pak 2 star officers it seems believe that India has more than 12 consulates in Afghanistan. You guys are complete idiots to believe Rupeenews to the T. Look at the ground realities.

And if you think India can carry on drug trade in Afghanistan where US+UK+Hamid Karzai's brothers are running the show, well hat's off to India.

I am sure, however, India will not even find space or opportunity to carry on such an activity where competition is fierce and it lacks the logistical pickup, carry and delivery tools.

Don't you think India, if it had to carry black ops will fund opium cultivation in say, Himachal or far away place like Laos? Think.

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

@BUA

Well I've read about Dawood's alleged links to CIA. My take on it: plausible! After all they are willing to deal with devils for their interests.

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