by: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty - (www.bannerofliberty.com)
December 19, 2001
The New York Times reporters at the front wrote on December 19, "These past weeks, the press has been confined to a distant perch convenient only for gazing at plumes of smoke." To a large degree, that has been the American media reports from the "front" in Afghanistan. An injured American soldier was good for 24 hour a day coverage for several days.
But, what was the REAL story, at the front, where Afghan commanders were fighting with mostly 19th century methods - once again trying to drive out some hated foreigners? This time, the foreigners were not Americans. The Americans controlled the skies and there were a few American Special Forces using highly technical methods to call down the bombs on al Qaeda forces.
On the ground, the Afghans ruled. They called a number of cease-fires to chat with their enemies about surrender. They were the ones being shot at by the al Qaeda and, when there were casualties, and there were, they were not identified or mourned by the American media. Suddenly it stopped, what had been 1500 to 2000 al Qaeda fighters just ……evaporated - apparently along with Osama bin Ladin, his top commanders and, apparently, even his wives and his many children who had lived at a village called Farmdadden on a former Soviet collective farm bin Ladin bought about three years ago.
And, one of the networks showed an anti-Taliban top commander, who had been negotiating a surrender that never happened, paying off his soldiers with a large packet of money and sending them home.
Now, where, do you suppose, that cache of bills came from in the mountains of Tora Bora? The reporters didn't bother to ask. Who, do you suppose, in the mountains of Tora Bora might have HAD a stack of money? Could it possibly have been Osama bin Ladin?
It have been reported that the anti-Taliban forces considered the capture of Osama bin Ladin not their problem. All they wanted to do was getting rid of the foreigners who had caused them so much grief.
Now, it appears, in the mountains of Tora Bora things are back to normal - battles between warlords over who controls the ancient and busy trade routes which move millions of dollars in opium into Pakistan and other nations. The Pakistan government does not control those routes. Local warlords on the ground control them. A
Another network showed a few of the 4 million Afghans who have fled their war torn nation in recent years returning home. One showed a forlorn businessman who walked sadly among old looms wondering how he could possibly rebuild his business of making cloth out of locally grown cotton. Since the Taliban, it was opium, not cotton, that the farmers were forced to produce.
What? You ask. Wasn't it the Taliban that OUTLAWED growing opium? It has been reported worldwide that that Taliban, last year, ordered the end of opium production. And it did. So much opium had been produced, three times what was produced in the early 1990s, since they took over in 1996 that they flooded the European market. The price of heroin on the street dropped 90%.
While they stopped opium production in the areas they controlled in 2001, they have, or had, a two-year supply of the opium poppy pods in warehouses, so the supply to Europe was not reduced.
And, where did all that money go? It went into the pockets of the Taliban to fund their terrorism and oppression. It went into the pockets of those who control the trade routes over the mountains.
So, what we have is an end to the fighting by most of our anti-Taliban on the ground and a President and Secretary of Defense who keep saying, "It's not over yet."
What's the solution? The people of Afghanistan are sick and tired of war, after 20 years of it. Their nation has been destroyed. They industries and their cities have been destroyed. We are at a turning point.
Do we now get mad at our allies and force them to do what we think they need to do? Or, shall we use our money to show them how much better it is when you build up a nation, rather than tear it down. And, what do we do with the existing warlords and the Opium dealers? Without law and order, can ANY nation survive? No. It can't.
What opium farmers and opium dealers want is money. The farmers would grow cotton and wheat if it were more profitable than opium. Under the Taliban, most of the irrigated lands in Afghanistan were used for growing opium. Three years of drought drove many off the land. For the cost of the bombs we dropped to rid the land of the Taliban could build a lot of irrigation ditches and subsidize a lot of farmers growing wheat and cotton.
Afghanistan produces 90% of the opium used for the heroin trade in Europe. It not only funded the Taliban, it also funds warlords and drug lords in Afghanistan, Turkey, Kosovo (the KLA) and throughout Europe. Drying up the billions of dollars used throughout the world to fund terrorism requires that the sources of both heroin and cocaine - not only in Afghanistan, but also in other drug nations in our own hemisphere.
And, those who support the drug trade with their habits need to be treated not as "victims" as was the case throughout the Clinton years, but as accomplices to terrorism, which is what they are. President Bush has declared that the war on terrorism must include a financial squeeze. That needs to start on the streets of America, where much of the money for terrorism comes from.
It's not enough to close down fake Muslim "charities" that collect money for terrorist actions. We also must close down the dealers and the users in the cities and suburbs of America.
And that, folks, is going to be a HUGE political battle in Washington, where the media and politicians have spent more than 30 years creating a drug-friendly environment.
Keep that in mind when you begin to get exasperated with ragged anti-Taliban commanders in the mountains of Afghanistan who probably allowed Osama bin Ladin to escape in exchange for money top pay their soldiers, many of whom had not been paid for months.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com