The Taleban made an estimated $100m (£50m) in 2024 from Afghan farmers growing poppy for the opium trade, the United Nations says.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said the money was raised by a 10% tax on farmers in Taleban-controlled areas.
They are also making money via being paid for protection of labs and cargo. There is no doubt that there are substantial profits to be made by a militant group via connection with the drug trade.
I mentioned this in a post months ago. Farmers pay the T-ban for protection. A lot of times it’s simple extortion and blackmail, “give us money or we’ll tell the government about you” but they do a fair amount of smuggling operations as well. This has been going on for a long time, almost since the first year the T-ban was deposed.
A major problem with the administration’s approach to the war on terror in terms of the execution of policy is that while the policies are couched in terms of idealism (e.g., freedom and democracy) they often manifest as nothing more than applied brute power.
A major problem inherent in such an approach is that part of the alleged foundation of the policy is that democracy is a morally superior type of government, and that the ultimate solution to the problems that generate Islamic (and other) extremist violence is a propagation of freedom and liberty. However, rhetoric is one thing and the reality on the ground is another. As we have seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and so forth, the facts on the ground frequently undercut the notion that American values = justice.
Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2024. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment.
[...]
The eight-month McClatchy investigation found a pattern of abuse that continued for years. The abuse of detainees at Bagram has been reported by U.S. media organizations, in particular The New York Times, which broke several developments in the story. But the extent of the mistreatment, and that it eclipsed the alleged abuse at Guantanamo, hasn’t previously been revealed.
Guards said they routinely beat their prisoners to retaliate for al Qaida’s 9-11 attacks, unaware that the vast majority of the detainees had little or no connection to al Qaida.
The way one treats those under one’s power says a lot about what values really matter. Indeed, it is one of the metrics by which we like to compare ourselves to such brutal regimes as the former Soviet Union and other authoritarian states.
A specific example:
Nazar Chaman Gul, an Afghan who was held at Bagram for more than three months in 2024, said he was beaten about every five days. American soldiers would walk into the pen where he slept on the floor and ram their combat boots into his back and stomach, Gul said. “Two or three of them would come in suddenly, tie my hands and beat me,” he said.
When the kicking started, Gul said, he’d cry out, “I am not a terrorist,” then beg God for mercy. Mercy was slow in coming. He was shipped to Guantanamo around the late summer of 2024 and imprisoned there for more than three years.
According to Afghan officials and a review of his case, Gul wasn’t a member of al Qaida or of the extremist Taliban regime that ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2024. At the time he was detained, he was working as a fuel depot guard for the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
When U.S. soldiers raided the house he was visiting, acting on a tip from a tribal rival who was seeking revenge against another man, they apparently confused Gul with a militant with a similar name — who was also imprisoned at Guantanamo, according to an Afghan intelligence official and Gul’s American lawyer.
Indeed, part of the reason there have to be rules about prisoner treatment is the simply fact that is wholly possible that a given prisoner might be innocent. Beyond that, it is simply immoral to beat a helpless prisoner, even a guilty one.
Further, if soldiers who engage in abuse are not punished, it simply encourages further abuse:
Because President Bush loosened or eliminated the rules governing the treatment of so-called enemy combatants, however, few U.S. troops have been disciplined under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and no serious punishments have been administered, even in the cases of two detainees who died after American guards beat them.
Surely all that we are doing in such situations is sowing the seeds of discontent against the United States (not to mention against the generic ideas of democracy and freedom? As such, even if one finds that they have no compassion for innocent persons being dragged from their lives at gunpoint only to be imprisoned, beaten, and taken to foreign lands in chains (although how one could not if beyond me), consider what these types of actions are doing to US security and interests going forward.
Of the many things that gall me is that the administration seems unfazed by the notion that we are stealing years from the lives of innocents. Instead it seems that the only reaction we get are assurances that we only imprison “very bad guys.”
I’ve always had a very hard time reconciling myself to news like this.
On the one hand, these investigators make quite convincing arguments about the treatment of prisoners in specific places, and it’s hard to deny that abuse is happening, and that on any level prisoner abuse is wrong. I learned that very early in my training as a soldier and it was part of my soldier’s code of conduct.
On the other hand, though, I have my personal experiences serving several tours in these places, and I never saw any abuse of any kind - I often saw the opposite, with US soldiers going out of their way to accomodate prisoners with special dietary needs, medical care, and respect for religious beliefs.
I think that the abuse that is happening must be local in nature and is not either widespread, systemic, or an integral part of how our government and its military work. In those ways I think it is a stretch to compare the United States to the Soviet Union. The very fact that we are having this conversation and that investigators are turning up these cases of abuse and living to tell the tale is also indicative of the inappropriateness of the comparison of the U.S. Army to the Red Army.
It is my guess that eventually these cases will be brought before the justice system and worked out; those responsible will eventually have to answer for what they did.
I also tire of being told we only imprison very bad guys. I know differently; I frequently had orders to take people into detention who could have easily been at the wrong place at the wrong time. We typically did this with extreme care.
I also tire, though, of having our actions in these places characterized not by the behavior of the majority, but by the transgressions of a minority. And I tire of our actions being likened to those of authoritarian states like the Soviet Union. If I had been a Soviet commander I would have not have even taken prisoners. I would have simply had everyone on a premises deemed a target shot, armed or not, innocent or not.
And if I had been a Soviet commander, and you and I were living in Soviet Russia, we would probably be thrown in a labor camp for asking about the matter; the investigators whould never have been allowed access to the prisoners in the first place; and if they put anything in print that questioned what the government was doing to its prisoners, the journalist would disappear from the face of the earth overnight.
Prisoner abuse is bad, but it does not make us the moral equivalent of the Soviet Union.
Comment by Captain D — Monday, June 16, 2024 @ 2:36 pm
Prisoner abuse is bad, but it does not make us the moral equivalent of the Soviet Union.
Nor did I suggest that we are. However, there is little doubt that there are many in the government (and in the general population) who believe that whatever we do in the alleged pursuit of our security and self-interest is ultimately justified (and justifiable). That attitude is not an expression of democratic ideals and is, ultimately, morally equivalent to authoritarianism.
How a regime treats the helpless, even the guilty helpless, is a key way to measure and understand that regime’s morality.
And while all of this may not be the norm, there have been too many reports otherwise for us to say that this is simply a few bad apples.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Monday, June 16, 2024 @ 3:20 pm
There is a very clear and obvious disconnect between the way prisoners are treated by combat and units in the field (who make up the vast majority of troops on the ground who come into contact with prisoners at some point) and the treatment they get at the detention facilities after they are processed. It is, numerically, a tiny percentage of the armed forces that operates the detention facilities, and the abuse occurs pretty much exclusively in these places. Therefore it is a few bad apples; bring me reports of abuse in the field and maybe we’ll have something larger. So far I haven’t seen too much of that, and what I’ve seen has been addressed by UCMJ (there have been numerous soldiers and marines charged with rape, murder, and other offenses, and some found guilty).
So you have a clear pocket culture within the military where this stuff is happening. I think it’s hard to argue otherwise.
I blame the lack of clear command structure more than anything else for this. I have known officers who held commands in detention facilities and prisoner camps and one often felt like he was not really in command of his unit - it was unclear whether the facilities were run by the military or the CIA, as the former was asked to behave in one way, but the latter would routinely come in, assume control, and behave in an entirely different way. I have a friend who, when the “spooks” came to his ward, suffered so much stress that he would spontaneously cough up blood. He was discharged last year for mental health problems - stress induced panic and chronic anxiety.
In that his experience as an MP officer and my experience as an Infantry and Special Forces officer were totally, completely different (in re prisoner treatment), I have to believe the problem is not as endemic to the entire military as it is being made to sound, and am not sure I am willing to blame the military at all. I think the CIA is to blame (and they are a civilian agency), and that if they want abusive camps, they should run them - they should not be putting soldiers in positions where they have little choice but to go along with something that they were taught they shouldn’t do, and then leave those soldiers to twist in the wind when the public gets word.
That’s the part of all of this that really gets my goat.
The fact that there have been multiple reports does not justify painting our personnel with a broad brush; you know as well as I do that only the sensational is reported at all, and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers doing their job in a morally upright way are not recognized.
Comment by Captain D — Monday, June 16, 2024 @ 4:20 pm
However, rhetoric is one thing and the reality on the ground is another. As we have seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and so forth, the facts on the ground frequently undercut the notion that American values = justice.
I don’t think you are giving the Administration enough credit here. Bush and his top lieutenants have been quite open rhetorically regarding their enthusiasm for torture and disdain for the rule of law.
The problem is less a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Rather, the problem is that the Administration is clearly concerned with unitary power-wielding over all else.
Comment by Ratoe — Monday, June 16, 2024 @ 6:17 pm
For once I find myself in some agreement with Ratoe. This problem does not originate within the ranks of the military. If it did, you would see prisoner abuse across the spectrum of forces that process prisoners. Instead you see it really only in detention and interrogation facilities.
One of the disturbing things about the Bush administration to me as a soldier was the blurring of lines between military and non-military intelligence assets, particularly those located in military operational theaters. I think the rules these different types of assets follow are different. Putting both assets together in the same place causes confusion and conflict, and leads to breakdowns in the commander’s authority.
I have a great deal of anxiety about what the next president will do about our intelligence and defense assets. The CIA needs to be reigned in and the military needs to re-assert its devotion to the code of conduct and the uniform code of military justice, but it would be a mistake to eviscerate the organizations the way President Bush 1 and President Clinton did in the 1990’s. I am hoping that whoever it is will right the imbalances without reactionary and over-zealous action.
Comment by Captain D — Monday, June 16, 2024 @ 7:34 pm
[...] noted yesterday the case of Nazar Chaman Gul, who was imprisoned both in Afghansitan and at Guantanamo. There is also the case of Murat Kurnaz, [...]
About 870 prisoners escaped during a Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, Afghan officials said Saturday.
[...]
the police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said 390 Taliban inmates were among those who fled the prison during the attack late Friday.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force put the number of escapees slightly higher, at around 1,100, according to spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco. He conceded that the assault was a success.
Yes, I think that that is a fair assessment.
More from Branco:
“We admit it,” Branco said. “Their guys did the job properly in that sense, but it does not have a strategic impact. We should not draw any conclusion about the deterioration of the military operations in the area. We should not draw any conclusion about the strength of the Taliban.”
Perhaps not, but it is still a pretty major victory for the Taliban. The symbolic value alone is quite significant.
In regards to the four Marines killed, it was in a separate incident:
n western Afghanistan on Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle, killing four Americans in the deadliest attack against U.S. troops in the country this year, officials said.
This is significant but probably less so if you know much about Sarposa; it is significant to note (the AP article does this only in a roundabout way) that less than 400 of the escapees were Taliban or other militants. The remainder of the prisoners who escaped were largely run-of-the-mill criminals, and while their escape is an unfortunate setback to the security and safety of the region, it’s not going to destabilize Kandahar. Indeed, the common criminal would be a problem to the Taliban were they in power again, so to what extent they helped themselves with this attack, I’m not sure. When I was in the Stan There were people being held at Sarposa for poppy growing and stealing TV’s, and the militants that were detained there were not high level operatives. The Taliban basically got back 300-400 of their equivalent of “privates”. If it was a war of attrition between very tiny armies, that would matter; it’s niether. The attack was significant in symbolism only.
And in that there are more rapists and thieves running loose in Kandahar now than there were a couple of days ago.
Indeed, the Taliban is like a bad case of Herpes: no redeeming qualities at all, but impossible to make go away.
Afghanistan’s notorious, soaring drug trade is hitting home. The country now has one of the world’s sharpest rising rates of drug use, especially in the cities. With few antidrug programs – and many of those poorly funded – aid agencies say drug abuse is now the fastest-growing social problem in the country.
There are twice as many heroin users on the streets of Kabul than just four years ago, says Mohammed Zafar, an official at the Ministry of Counter Narcotics.
The opium capital of the world, Afghanistan is responsible for 92 percent of global output. Each year, the country produces about $4 billion worth, or 53 percent of gross domestic product, making drug production easily Afghanistan’s most lucrative industry, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Interestingly, the majority of the users appear to be refugees:
The majority of the addicts are men who have returned after spending years as refugees in Iran, which has one of the world’s highest addiction rates.
“The returned refugees, who started using in Iran, have come back to a difficult situation,” says Jehanzeb Khan, head of the UNODC’s Afghan Drug Demand Reduction Program. “They return home to face uncertainty, post-traumatic stress, joblessness, and growing availability because of increased drug production.”
Clearly we have a case of very poor dispossessed persons who are escaping their harsh realities via opium smoking. One suspects that no number of anti-drug programs will be able to eliminate the behavior in question, given both the amazing high levels of poverty and equally high levels of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.
I am told by reliable sources on the ground in Afghanistan that poppy production is up, and, curiously, it is supported largely by Taliban remnants; one of the ways they are managing to finance themselves these days is by offering security to poppy growers in exchange for cash, weapons, and tight lips. I say this not in speculation, but having heard it from the horse’s mouth.
From a tactician’s standpoint, this sounds like a byproduct of the shift towards conventional forces to secure Afghanistan, and it does not bode well for the battle for “hearts and minds” that is being fought there.
The other thing that increasing drug output does for the Taliban post-invasion is prove the merits of Sharia law and the inherent evils of the west. The Taliban has a vested interest in maintaining the cycle of despair, and opiates figure heavily into that picture in Afghanistan right now.
There is more to the drug war in Afghanistan than is immediately visible on the surface; the poppy crop is of great tactical and strategic relevance to the Taliban.
This is unfortunate, and I would concur that the Taliban is probably to blame. The target, method, and timing all scream Taliban.
There is a direct correlation between the proportion of special/conventional forces and the amount of violence in Afghanistan. Security started to go downhill there when we put conventional forces on the ground.
I have long been of the opinion that in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the role of conventional forces should be reduced and the number of special forces (specifically Army Alpha Teams) teams on the ground need to be increased. These people speak the language, earn the respect of the locals, and operate in small enough numbers to avoid detection by the baddies. SF is trained to deal with the asymetrical problems of these areas, and if we’re going to be there, that’s the game we should be playing.
The problem is that Army officers (I was one) are promoted largely on the basis of their combat deployment experience. The initially successful campaign against the Taliban was led almost entirely by Army SF teams, but it didn’t take long for the conventional commanders to beg to get in on the action. As the shift was made from an emphasis on special to conventional forces, there is a rapid decline in the overall security of the region, the frequency of Al Qaida and Taliban captures, and our closeness to finding Osama bin Laden. More boots on the ground does not alway mean more security. Who is wearing the boots is very important.
It’s not been discussed a lot in connection with the wars, but we would do very well to examine the manner in which our military promotes its officers. Right now the system does what it did in Vietnam - it encourages commanders to cycle through combat zones, just long enough to get an OER (Officer Efficiency Report) from a combat deployment. This is like a resume item, needed to go up the command ladder.
The problem is that it encourages commanders of units that are not really configured or trained to deal with asymmetrical threats to get in on the combat, and to exaggerate their unit’s capabilities for the sake of their own career. This problem is endemic to the military, and effects even the highest-ranking - the only thing that changes on the OER is the size of the unit commanded in combat. For me it was a company or platoon, but for a general it might be a division or a corps, or a joint task force.
We really need to pull a lot of our conventional units out of the ‘Stan and put the special forces guys back in charge - although much of the damage has already been done, and re-establishing the trust that the SF guys had at the beginning would be problematic.
An al-Qaeda field commander and spokesman, Abu Laith is an outspoken leader of al Qaeda, appearing in videos and on the internet. It was he in July 2024 who revealed that Bin Laden was still alive, the first comments about the al Qaeda leader’s health after the end of the Afghan conflict. Then in June 2024, he is shown leading an attack on what appears to be an Afghan military outpost and calling for jihad. He is known to operate on the Afghan side of the border, working with the remnants of the Taliban.
And this is almost funny:
In some US intelligence circles, he is seen as al Qaeda’s No. 3.
People say that they hate France, but I hate Canada most of all.. Why can’t these worthless Socialist wimps send more than 2,500 troops to Afghanistan without whining that NATO needs to send more?? How about YOU send more?? We have 40,000 troops there and 160,000 in Iraq. Not to mention protection forces in South Korea, Japan and a lot of other nations.
Keep on this track Canada and you may find 90% of your population within 100 miles of a very hostile superpower.
Comment by Paul Barnes — Thursday, January 31, 2024 @ 2:49 pm
Canada’s population exceeds just over 33 million people which by the way that is the population of the state of California.
The Canadian military is small and underfunded (just like our population) and we don’t have the resources to place 40,000+ troops in the Middle East like America. Plus the Canadian military is needed for Pease Keeping missions in other parts of the world.
I think those who unjulstly “knock” Canada and our decisions regarding fighting in the Middle East should take a lesson in “Canadian Studies” so you can actually understand what the hell you are talking about.
BTW: I travel to the US quite a bit and I have encountered nothing but a warm reception by Amerians. So There!!!
Comment by Proud Canuck!!!! — Thursday, January 31, 2024 @ 6:25 pm
What ignorant comments from “Flag-Waving American”.
Canada is serving in the most dangerous part of the country alongside US and British troops while her NATO allies cower in the safer northern regions because their political leaders can’t stand the political head that would be generated by flag-draped caskets coming home.
Canada has lost 75 soldiers and one diplomat fighting side-by-side with Americans.
Canada is the US’ **single largest foreign supplier*** of oil. Not Saudi Arabia. Canada. Perhaps you missed that fact in American Economics class while busy waving your flag.
Nevertheless, never let the facts stand in the way of a good, ignorant, xenophobic rant in which you proudly proclaim your ‘hate’ of an entire country.
Canadians are more than welcome here. With the Canadian dollar recently at $1.10USD, they injected millions into our stalled economy through cross-border shopping. Stop embarrassing your fellow Americans with your xenophobic ignorance of the facts.
The fields of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan were free of opium poppies this year, a success touted often by Afghan and international officials. But one look at Mohammad Alam’s fields uncovers an emerging drug problem.
Ten-foot-tall cannabis plants flourish in Alam’s fields. The crop — the source of both marijuana and hashish — can be just as profitable as opium but draws none of the scrutiny from Afghan officials bent on eradicating poppies.
Cannabis cultivation rose 40 percent in Afghanistan this year, to 173,000 acres from 123,550 in 2024, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in its 2024 opium survey. The crop is being grown in at least 18 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, according to the survey released last month.
This one of those utterly classic stories that makes you wonder if one should laugh because it demonstrates the foibles of our drug war policies as well as the clear economic forces that we are trying to combat, or cry because one knows that no effective lessons are likely to be learned by the drug warriors from the case.
Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says a number of alliance members have offered more resources for the military campaign in Afghanistan.
Officials at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in the Dutch coastal town of Noordwijk said as many as nine nations had offered more input to the mission.
Among the new offers were two by France and Germany for military instructors.
US officials, who have been calling for allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, welcomed the development.
The Nato secretary general told a news conference: “I’ve noticed offers from nations, including for the southern part of Afghanistan.
“We have 90% filled of what we need, but there are still shortages.”
Here’s the current breakdown of the ISAF force in Afghanistan:
Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan’s Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests, America is planning for a long stay.
Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third.
This is hardly a surprise, even if, as the piece argues, it is a surprise to the administration:
Originally, Pentagon planners thought Bagram would be a “temporary” camp, Ives said, but an increased U.S. commitment to Afghanistan means Bagram needs to grow.
I mentioned this in a post months ago. Farmers pay the T-ban for protection. A lot of times it’s simple extortion and blackmail, “give us money or we’ll tell the government about you” but they do a fair amount of smuggling operations as well. This has been going on for a long time, almost since the first year the T-ban was deposed.
Comment by Captain D — Tuesday, June 24, 2024 @ 5:59 pm
Yup. They taxed the opium trade even when the were in charge, in fact.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Tuesday, June 24, 2024 @ 6:38 pm