As evidence grows of Osama bin Laden and his network's connection to the most horrific terrorism in our history, and as President Bush promises to mobilize the nation for a military campaign against those who harbor such terrorists and a disruption of their financing, consider this fact: Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of the opium poppy, the crop refined into heroin. According to the State department, Afghanistan's poppy cultivation area has quadrupled since 1990.

The Taliban government has made no effective attack against opium cultivation or production. On the contrary, they have nurtured the development of an infrastructure for the production of heroin "in contrast to several years ago when nearly all heroin refining took place outside the country," the State Department reports. Despite Taliban claims, officials believe that nothing indicates that the Taliban intends to take serious action to destroy heroin laboratories or stop drug trafficking.

As in Colombia -- where the FARC, the ELN, and paramilitary extremists combine to commit more murders of civilians than in any other nation while deriving their funding from drug trafficking -- we can stop a huge portion of the funding of the terrorists if we go after the money of the drug traffickers -- they are likely one and the same. Colombia is the leading supplier of cocaine to the world; Afghanistan is the leading supplier of poppy for heroin. The Taliban, which harbors bin Laden, has overseen on its land the world's greatest growth in opium cultivation as well as heroin production and trafficking. It is not a coincidence and may well answer the question of where bin Laden and those who harbor and support him may get a great part of their operational money.

U.S. consumers spend $57 billion a year on purchases of illegal drugs. Drugs were a national security issue even before the World Trade Center and Pentagon destruction. 50,000 die annually in the U.S. from drug related causes, we face over $100 billion in health and workplace damages each year, and over 60 percent of arrestees for all crimes in the U.S. test positive for illegal drugs.

Hearings are set to begin on the confirmation of John Walters as the next Drug Czar, following Barry McCaffrey. Walters has been criticized for a record of statements indicating a predisposition to making a priority of enforcement and interdiction strategies rather than prevention, education, and treatment. We will never truly end drug abuse in America if we do not succeed in encouraging children to avoid these poisons.

However, here is a case where all can agree. On Sunday and Monday, the Attorney General stated that the laws allowing us to go after those who harbor drug traffickers are stronger than ones letting us confront those who harbor terrorists. He, the Secretary of State, and the President have stated that we will punish those who harbor terrorists. Included in the investigation and prosecution of bin Laden and his network should be his and the Taliban's connection to opium cultivation and heroin production.

The Drug Czar can make an enormous contribution to the current proper war against terrorism by emphasizing its link to drug trafficking, and supplying all possible resources to find and block the funding base of the drug traffickers in key terrorist states like Afghanistan and Colombia. In so doing he will not only be strengthening our national security by helping to root out the despicable perpetrators of deeds like the horrific ones in New York and the Pentagon, he will be protecting our children as well.

Bob Weiner was director of public affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy May 1995-July 2001. He is now president of Robert Weiner Associates, a public affairs and issues strategy company.

To: National Desk: Released Today by Robert Weiner Associates:
Contact: Bob Weiner of Robert Weiner Associates, 301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700

Note: A.G. And Sec. State Should Look At Taliban Nurturing Funds From World-Leading Opium Cultivation And Heroin Production. Prosecute Bin Laden Through Taliban Heroin Connection, Ex-White House Drug Staffer Urges.

Complete Title: Bin Laden Taliban Heroin Connection Prosecution Urged

Source: U.S. Newswire
Published: September 18, 2001
Copyright: 2001 U.S. Newswire
Website: http://www.usnewswire.com/

Related Articles:

War on Drugs a Closer Fit
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10928.shtml

The two wars will rapidly become one in the same,,in fact,I'm
sure that it will be made official soon,and the gov will say that
they will join the recources of the drug war agencies,into the
terrorism war,,,and they will tell the public that it will save
the taxpayers money.

''As narcotic enforcement professionals, the members of the National Narcotic Officers’ Associations Coalition believe that the United States and all Americans are currently under attack from foreign-based enemies. We are faced with daily acts of terrorism that make the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City or the World Trade Center in New York pale by comparison. With the cost to Americans reaching more than $50 billion annually and thousands of lives lost each year, it is clear that the greatest threat to the security of this nation is drug abuse and the crime, violence, and social ills that accompany it. Quite simply, drug trafficking is an act of terrorism.''

-- The Coalition (National Narcotic Officers' Association Coalition), Volume 4 Issue 1, Spring 1999
http://www.natlnarc.org/newsletters/1999-06/newsletter.htm

Remember too ... when these narcs squeal "trafficker," or "dealer," they just say that for public consumption. When prohibitionists say "dealers," they are lying: they really mean users.*

Statesmanship at its finest. Madman theory: War on anybody who won't do what we tell them.

I wonder what she has to say about her remarks at this time? With leaders like her no wonder we have enemies. Witness the hell we are paying now. Paybacks are a bitch, I guess.

Osama bin Laden, nice guy that he is, returned in kind. He also subscribes to the Madman theory, in his own special way. Or is this Saddam Hussein paying us back?

No matter who or what, it ain't good, that's for sure.

Is it possible to trade Bill Clinton for Osama bin Laden? Six of one half a dozen of the other?

Maybe we are being taken for fools not by Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, but by our own leaders.

Such a shame, we knew that they couldn't be trusted, and now we know why.

Apparently, if you want to fool with Osama bin Laden, you better be ready.

This is sad. God help us find PEACE.

Subject: War. Do We have the Belly?

I can't confirm the validity of the signature of this
letter, but the
message rings true nonetheless:

Subject: Letter From an Afghani American
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 21:10:05 -0700

I've been hearing a lot of talk about 'bombing Afghanistan
back to the
Stone Age.' Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed
that this
would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing
to do with
this atrocity, but 'we're at war, we have to accept
collateral damage.
What else can we do?' Minutes later I heard some TV pundit
discussing
whether we 'have the belly to do what must be done.' And I
thought
about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years
I've never
lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell
anyone who will
listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
There is no
doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the
atrocity in
New York. I agree that something must be done about those
monsters. But
the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not
even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant
psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a
political
criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis.
When you
think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think 'the people of
Afghanistan' think 'the Jews in the concentration camps.'
It's not only
that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity.
They were
the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if
someone
would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the
rats nest
of international thugs holed up in their country.

Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the
Taliban? The
answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated,
suffering.
A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are
500,000
disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy,
no food.
There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been
burying these
widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land
mines, the
farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of
the reasons
why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to
the Stone
Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of
it already.
Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level
their houses?
Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
Eradicate their
hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from
medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all
that. New
bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would
they at least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only
the Taliban
eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip
away and
hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled
orphans, they
don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But
flying over
Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the
criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would
only be making
common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the
people they've
been raping all this time.

So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now
speak with
true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to
go in
there with ground troops. When people speak of 'having the
belly to do
what needs to be done' they're thinking in terms of having
the belly to
kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any
moral qualms
about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of
the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not
just because
some Americans would die fighting their way through
Afghanistan to Bin
Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because
to get any
troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan.
Will they let
us? We'll see. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be
first. Will
other Muslim nations just stand by?

You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war
between Islam
and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's
exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his
speeches and
statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam
would beat
the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can
polarize
the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion
soldiers. If the
west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion
people with
nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's
point of
view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win,
whatever that
would mean, but the war would last for years and millions
would die,
not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin Laden does. Anyone else?

I found the below info at:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.hijacking.philippines/index.html

MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- The FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN.

Philippine authorities learned of the plot after a small fire in a Manila apartment, which turned out to be the hideout of Ramzi Yousef, who was later convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef escaped at the time, but agents caught his right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, who told them a chilling tale.

"Murad narrated to us about a plan by the Ramzi cell in the continental U.S. to hijack a commercial plane and ram it into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and also the Pentagon," said Rodolfo Mendoza, a Philippine intelligence investigator.

Philippine investigators also found evidence targeting commercial towers in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.

They said they passed that information on to the FBI in 1995, but it's not clear what was done with it.

-

...there was more to the article, but I clipped it to show that the drug warriors are themselves endangering national security by not fighting violence and REAL crime instead of chasing potheads and creating more value in smaller and more lethal smuggled drugs.

As so many before here have pointed out here in cannabisnews.com, prohibition actually, if not intentionally increases the flow of drugs.

God help us all if they think they can fight a war on terrorism the same way as the War on (some) Drugs. The vast majority of drug related fatalities are due to enforcement, not consumption. If they want to end terrorism they need to promote hemp and marijuana, for peace, power, food fuel, fiber, resin, construction materials medicine and more.

1. The drug is associated with a hated subgroup of the society or a foreign enemy.

http://drugwarpropaganda.selfhost.com/t.cgi?1

Nimda Computer Worm Hits Worldwide

September 18, 2001 4:33 pm EST
By Duncan Martell

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A damaging new computer worm was spreading like wildfire across the Internet on Tuesday, hitting both home PC users and commercial servers, in an outbreak that could prove more widespread and costly than the Code Red viruses, computer security experts said.

Known as "Nimda," which spells admin backwards, the worm spreads by sending infected e-mails and also appears able to infect Web sites, so when a user visits a compromised Web site, the browser -- if it has not been patched -- can spread the worm to a PC, analysts said.

So far, it appears that Nimda arrives in e-mail without a subject line and containing an attachment titled "readme.exe," experts said.

Internet security experts have warned of the potential for an increase in virus activity after last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said there was no sign the outbreak was linked to those events.

"There is no evidence at this time which links this infection to the terrorist attacks of last week," Ashcroft told a news briefing.

The worm may have started as early as Monday and was showing signs of overloading traffic on the Internet, Ashcroft said, saying that Nimda proved "heavier" than the Code Red worm that caused an estimated $2.6 billion in clean-up costs on Internet-linked computers after outbreaks in July and August.

"Compared to Code Red, it may well be bigger simply because it can affect home users as well," said Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant for Sophos Antivirus.

If Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook e-mail program has not been patched with an update that became available in March, the recipient does not even need to open the attachment to activate the virus -- opening the e-mail itself is sufficient -- said Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec Corp.'s Symantec Security Response unit.

Other e-mail programs, such as Eudora or International Business Machine Corp.'s Lotus Notes, require the recipient to open the attachment for the virus to replicate, he said.

So far, the malicious program does not appear capable of erasing files or data, but Nimda has shown itself capable of slowing down computer operations as it replicates, experts said.

"In terms of data destruction, we haven't seen anything," Weafer said.

Experts said Nimda had appeared in the United States, Europe and Latin America and was likely to spread to other regions as well.

"It seems to be very widespread and (moves) at an incredibly quick rate," Cluley said. "The reason it's become so widespread is because it not only travels via e-mail but it contaminates Web sites as well."

The worm exploits an already detected vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Information Server Web software running on Windows NT or 2000 machines, the same breach that the Code Red viruses exploited, experts said.

Once Nimda infects a machine, it tries to replicate in three ways. It has its own e-mail engine and will try to send itself out using addresses stored in e-mail programs. It also scans IIS servers looking for the known vulnerability and attacks those servers. Finally, it looks for shared disk drives and tries to replicate itself to those devices, Symantec's Weafer said.

Experts urged companies and users to update antivirus software and to download the software patches, noting the principal reason the worm had spread so quickly was that people and companies had not downloaded the free software patches.