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Secret "Mexican-American" Blackwater (Xe, Academi) hit squad, authorized by the Bush administration and led by a "bodyguard for a narco crime boss," "whacking people like crazy over in Afghanistan for the CIA" as recently as 2011, with little or no oversight but apparently plenty of denial.  "Blackwater produced no evidence that the firm's employees had ever killed anyone on behalf of the CIA."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-terrifying-background-of-the-man-who-ran-a-cia-assassination-unit/259856/

http://blog.thegooddrugsguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/opium-poppies-afghanistan.jpg

.... and Obama assassinated a 16 year old American citizen without due process. Whats new about the fact that our country is run by murderous gangsters with no respect for the rule of law or society?

And here's a lovely little companion piece to the picture in the OP:

https://rainbowwarrior2005.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/201109top.jpg

Yes, those are US troops. No, they are not stopping that man from growing poppies. They are protecting him and his fields while he does so.

Yeah because pharmaceuticals need poppies in order to develop morphine and opiates which SAVE LIVES in critical situations...

That doesn't mean that I am for the drug war however, as it has created more problems than it has solved, and marijuana always gets unfair and brazen treatment, even though it's less addictive than coffee, and less harmful than many over the counter medications.

However, implying that the US troops are part of some massive conspiracy to smuggle heroine into the western world is a bit disingenuous.

And? Why are US troops guarding those fields? Why are our sons, fathers, brothers, and uncles risking their lives for pharmaceutical companies? No matter which way you slice this, it stinks to high heaven.

There are 40k dead from the "Drug Wars" in the last 5 years in mexico, also 40k Mexican army deployed. The "cartels" are trying to set up their own governments. There is a civil war occurring to the US's south and no one even talks about it. The illegal immigrants are refugees, I don't know whether fast and furious was more than it seems. It wouldn't surprise me.

The drug trade is valued at somewhere around $600 billion per year and growing. That is larger than the GDP of 90% of internationally recognized countries.

The war on drugs is either a joke, a failure, or a scheme of some kind.

Drug war= Hostile take over

Opium production went up 900% since the US went into Afghanistan. Did 900% more people suddenly need pain killers?

Says who?

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_chap1_opium.pdf

Your report shows a 16% jump...

Way to be lazy and only read the first paragraph. First of all that is JUST 2004, second that is GLOBAL ILLICIT POPPY PRODUCTION, not Afghanistan's production. Go down to "Table 1. GLOBAL ILLICIT CULTIVATION OF OPIUM POPPY AND PRODUCTION OF OPIUM, 1990-2004", page 3, and look at the jump in acreage after 2001.

http://i47.tinypic.com/1252rux.png

I'd say more around 60-70% since 2001 was such an outlier. Still, the point stands that the war on drugs is a joke.



Edit: Source is below

Also, people should not conflate the "War on Drugs" with the "Drug War". The Drug War is the media's term for the mexican civil war that has been going on for the last 5 years. So far 40k dead, over 40k mexican troops deployed, etc:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38565051/ns/world_news-americas/#.UBDYSKPlK70

You ask for sources from me but don't provide any of your own? For all I know that chart was made on a etch-a-sketch.

My bad, it is from your link, from the table you advised looking at, from the row you said was important. I think we are on the same side here though...

That is not the table I advised looking at. It is a simple index, not a chart. See page 3. I love how cherry picking always seems to be the thing the other guy does.

Look this is just a big waste of time... I dunno if you are trying to save face or what, but there is nothing wrong with being mistaken every now and then. It is a virtue to be able to acknowledge mistakes, many people find it difficult. It is in the interest of your cause to admit mistakes and learn from them. Really even talking about this is taking away from the point...but at the same time, my goal is getting past all this BS disinfo so we can actually have public discussions about how valid the data people base their opinions on is to begin with:



I follow the link:
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_chap1_opium.pdf

I find table 1 on page 3 of the pdf (pg # at bottom reads 41), and look at the acreage, specifically for afganistan (Top row of data):
"Go down to "Table 1. GLOBAL ILLICIT CULTIVATION OF OPIUM POPPY AND PRODUCTION OF OPIUM, 1990-2004", page 3, and look at the jump in acreage after 2001."


http://i47.tinypic.com/1252rux.png

Please explain how either I am looking at a chart different from the one you described or the numbers in that table and the numbers in the chart I created do not match up.

hmmm.  I was under the impression that Afghanistan only produced Opium Gum. Which is not used by pharmaceutical companies. They buy Poppy Straw, mostly from countries that have licensed prodcution schemes and extract the needed chemicals from a slury derived from the poppy straw.

The main reason US troops our guarding the farmers is not to make sure that it is sold to pharma. It is to make sure the Taliban is not stopping the farmers from growing. After that the troops have 0 to do with what the farmers do with their crops.....




Point is, and will remain that almost all poppy produced in Afghanistan is Illicit Poppy.....

Well, comparing 2001 production numbers, (part 2 of that chart, "Potential Production in Metric Tons") to 2004 numbers, the potential 2004 production is 22 times the 2001 potential production.

Comparing it to the 1990 numbers, the potential production in 2004 is more than 2.5 times.

The acreage increase from 2001 to 2004 is 17 times, and the increase from 1990 to 2004 is 3 times. Either way, it's a huge increase since the US has gone in, and y'all are just splitting hairs.

I found your 90***% number here;

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/187109.pdf

page 91;
Afghanistan A. Introduction Afghanistan produces roughly 90 percent of the world‘s illicit opium. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that Afghanistan cultivated 131,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2011, with a total yield of 5,800 metric tons (MT) of raw opium. This was a 7 percent increase in cultivation and a 61 percent increase in opium production from 2010, following a poppy blight the previous year which cut production roughly in half. Afghanistan remains involved in the full narcotics production cycle, from cultivation to finished heroin. Afghanistan is also believed to be among the world‘s largest producers of hashish.


wow, production is up to 5800 MT.  Much easier to keep the crops healthy when you got gov programs paying farmers to grow other stuff and instead they spend it to produce poppy more efficiently. ;p  Not to mention, not having the Taliban unable to skim off the top in the trade.  Which is nuts, the Taliban exercises Fatwa that says it is illegal to plant seed but they have no issue with taxing the shit out of the opium trade itself.

I still don't know what the hell you are looking at. This is what is on page 3...
http://www.tecshare.com/opium.jpg

So take the data in the Afghanistan row and make a line graph or whatever out of it. It will look exactly like what I posted.

http://i47.tinypic.com/1252rux.png

I know this is splitting hairs- but that is not what is on page 3, still don't know where that chart is from even if it mirrors the table. Seems fairly obvious to me that is nearly a 10x increase in acreage... you can't just dismiss the lowest year because it was an "outlier". That's not how it works. Have you ever considered perhaps the invasion might have been in part motivated by the local's eradication of the poppy fields, and the subsequent production restoration and increase might have also be a direct goal of the invasion in the first place? I am not sure how you can argue that the most significant reduction of poppy growth in the recorded history of Afghanistan is irrelevant. This says to me in short that the locals said no to the status quo, and the status quo told them to each shit and like it.

I made the chart by putting the numbers into excel. The failure of the authors to draw informative charts is wierd.

With regards to the statement I have bolded, Yes. That is true, does the paper you link to provide info that supports this? I actually didn't read it.

This is true. And the paper I link to supports it just in the numbers alone. That our presence there took their production from what was declining into what it is now at the highest it has ever been.  And it is primarily producing a product that it is not used in the pharmaceutical industry (Opium Gum).

Drug smuggling conspiracies aside, as far as our own CIA, et all doing the smuggling. The benefit to the US of having so much illicit opium produced in this area is in the added burden it adds from the addicts who now have much easier access to the end products in Russia, China, etc etc.

Exactly, just like the situation that caused the Boxer Rebellion. In addition to weakening opposing governments they also have a steady stream of funds to divert to black ops, because if it has to be appropriated from congress it is on the record. It costs them nearly nothing to produce and is sold for exorbitant prices usually at the expense of the target markets. In this case the large majority of heroin goes to Russian consumers.

I think it is great all the fun things are illegal.  If they were not illegal then they would not be fun anymore.  I mean think about going to your local supermarket and seeing LSD on sale next to the gum.

I just want people to deal with data and make informed decisions. Without complete information, there will always be multiple interpretations of the data. For that reason it is important that people are:

1: careful in what they say/believe
2: admit when further analysis of the data does not support what they have said

In this case I think there has been a failure with regards to #1 on your part. I agree with your conclusions 100% but disagree with your presentation of the important information. It is of the up-most importance that you make a best effort to convey information to others without exaggeration if you expect non-irrelevant people to take it seriously. The propagandists/marketers are people too.

Breaking drug war news: Drugs still winning.

Exactly what part did I exaggerate?

I don't know about exaggerate... but if you say "increased 900%" it is natural to ask "900% from what?" Then the mind tends to answer in "from normal levels". Clearly 2001 was an exceptionally bad year for the opium farmers (ie not normal), so this should be noted or explained at the outset. Either way there is definitely more to the war on drugs than most people think.

There is, actually, more to it.  2001 was a "bad year" because the Taliban completely outlawed opium growing and destroyed most of the crop (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/13/world/taliban-s-eradication-of-poppies-is-convulsing-opium-market.html).  Six months later we invaded.

Yea I didnt know that until it was mentioned earlier here. I think the miscommunication was tecshare assumed we all knew that the taliban was responsible for the bad year. And that adds a whole other dimension to the story.