Columnist Jamala Rogers
It seems ironic that our Nobel Peace Prize president would increase war efforts in Afghanistan. In a minute, the United States will have two full-fledged wars going on with a backdrop of a near-Great Depression economy. And if the U.S. policy in Iraq was unclear to the public, the Afghanistan mission has topped it.
Many of you eventually figured out that our military involvement in Iraq was never about the preservation of democracy and U.S. internal security. It was about the oil.
Most military intelligence sources agree that there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. So does it make military and financial sense to send 30,000 more troops and spend $30 billion we don’t have?
What’s the big deal on Afghanistan, a poor country that appears to be a mountainous heap of nothing? It’s all about the opium. Afghanistan is the world’s top producer of opium.
A few months before the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, Big Daddy Bush gave $43 million to the Taliban government. Although the purpose of the money has been disputed, the belief is that the Taliban used it against U.S. citizens, not only on September 11, and to fund their activities since then.
Add to this ugly fact that the Bush family’s business relations with the Bin Laden family go back a couple decades. That’s why it came as no surprise that we now find out Baby Bush had a chance to get the notorious terrorist but failed to do so.
If it is indeed true that there is $250-$300 billion from opium sales flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks annually, there’s a lot more at stake than trying to stabilize a corrupt government. It won’t be the first time illegal drugs were part of the U.S. military equation. Can you say Ollie North and the Contras?
Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have supposedly gone to the War on Terrorism with a hefty portion of it going into the individual pockets of people like Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his brother, Ahmed, an alleged drug lord. Or to former Pakistani President Musharraf who received a billion a year while in office but could only account for one-third of it.
I guess I should mention that the opium production dramatically increased since the U.S. allegedly replaced the Taliban government. According to a 2007 United Nations report, Afghanistan multiplied its yield by nearly 50 percent from 2006 and pushed global opium production to a new record high.
So if I sound a little bit skeptical about U.S. success in Afghanistan, you’ve been listening accurately. President Obama is basically using the same failed approach that his predecessor did – not being clear about the mission and the exit strategy, not being clear on the total cost in money and lives, and not getting the support of U.S. allies.
I nearly lost it when I heard President Obama say, “We have not sought world domination. .. We do not seek to occupy other nations … We will not claim another nation’s resources.”
If you believe that revisionist piece of history, then I have a country to sell you. Oh, I forgot – the U.S. has already been sold.