cannabisnews.com: An Outbreak in Afghanistan





An Outbreak in Afghanistan
Posted by CN Staff on December 07, 2004 at 07:35:43 PT
By Hayatullah Gaheez and Amanullah Nasrat
Source: AlterNet
Some residents of eastern Afghanistan blame aerial eradication of opium poppies for an outbreak of illness. They also say the U.S. is responsible. Omardin, a farmer in the Pacheeragam district in Nangarhar province, pointed to the contents of a black plastic bag. Inside, he said, was a substance he claimed was sprayed from an airplane as part of a drug-eradication effort in the country. He said his son has been made ill by the chemicals.
"I never even bothered to grow poppy, but because of the Americans, my God-given only son is sick," he said, shaking with anger. "His skin is sore and his body aches."As his eyes welled up with tears, Omardin vowed, "If my son dies, I will join the Taliban, and I will kill as many Americans as I can find."Omardin is not the only person who believes that foreigners – perhaps the Americans – are spraying opium crops with herbicides here as part of a counter-narcotics programme.Eyewitnesses in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar have reported seeing aircraft spraying poppy fields. Doctors in the region, meanwhile, said the sudden outbreak of skin diseases and respiratory ailments are due to a mysterious chemical they have so far been unable to identify.Afghan government officials have promised to investigate these claims. Jawed Ludin, spokesman for Afghan president Hamid Karzai, denies that the government authorized such aerial spraying in the Khogiani and Shinwari districts of Nangarhar. An official delegation is now studying soil samples taken from poppy fields in the area.Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, accounting for three-quarters of global output. According to newly released United Nations statistics, opium cultivation in 2004 increased by 64 percent over the previous year.Worried that Afghanistan may be evolving into a "narco-mafia" state, the United States, Europe and the United Nations have pledged to get tough on the opium trade. But the US military has insisted that its forces are not involved in crop eradication."US troops are not involved are not involved in eradication, which would include the spraying of poppy fields which we do not do," US military spokesman Major Mark McCann told Agence France-Presse last week.A US embassy spokesperson in Kabul declined to comment, saying questions on the subject could be asked in an upcoming press conference. Last month, however, the US Drug Enforcement Agency announced that it had joined with the State Department and the Department of Defense in developing a new Counternarcotics Implementation Plan for Afghanistan. Under the program, the DEA announced that it will assist in destroying clandestine labs and seizing precursor chemicals, raw opium and opiate stockpiles.To achieve that, the DEA said it is expanding its presence in Afghanistan by permanently stationing additional special agents and intelligence analysts in the country to enhance Afghanistan's counternarcotics capacity.In addition, the DEA announced it would deploy foreign advisory and support teams to Afghanistan early next year to provide guidance and conduct bilateral investigations that will identify, target and disrupt illicit drug trafficking organizations. These teams, the agency said, will help with the destruction of existing opium storage sites, clandestine heroin processing labs and precursor chemical supplies.US law enforcement agencies such as the DEA and the FBI already maintain a sizable presence in Afghanistan.Haji Din Mohammad, the governor of Nangarhar province, is convinced that aerial eradication is already underway and that the United States is behind it. At a recent press conferen, he said, "The crops were eradicated, and farmers have seen big planes flying over the fields and spraying."And in a separate press conference, General Mohammad Daoud, deputy interior minister in charge of counter-narcotics characterized aerial eradication as "illegal."Asked about official US denials of their involvement in such a program, Din Mohammad said, "They control the airspace, and no plane can fly over Afghanistan without their permission."Local residents blame the Americans for an outbreak of illness.Sayed Asadullah, 47, a resident of Kaga district, Nangarhar province, showed a reporter a dozen children between the ages of 10 and 14 who complained of severe body aches.Abed, 11, said, "A few days after the chemicals were sprayed, I found I had a sore throat and this terrible ache."Mohammad Sediq, 14, said his throat was hoarse from the substance sprayed on the fields."Ever since I ate some spinach from our field next to the opium field, I've had a sore throat," he said."It is all the result of the Americans' chemicals," said Asadullah.Others blamed the crop spraying for the death of livestock.A resident of Asmar district, Konar province, said 14 of his animals had died. "We took all our sick animals to the veterinarian, but he couldn't do anything," he said.Dr Abdul Ghafoor, the veterinarian who examined the animals, said they were suffering from serious respiratory problems. Ghafoor said he suspected the animals were suffering from a form of chronic asthma caused by inhalation of poisonous chemicals."This kind of disease is rare in Afghanistan," he said.Several doctors in the region also blamed exposure to chemicals for the outbreak of various illnesses among their human patients.Dr Samiullah Akbari, an ear, nose and throat specialist, said, "Those chemicals are insecticides for destroying crops. If human beings ingest them, they cause very bad stomach ailments."Dr Abdullah Momand, who specializes in treating skin diseases, said the cases of skin irritation were "undoubtedly" caused by contact with a chemical agent. Dr. Momand was pessimistic about the ability of Afghan medicine to deal with the outbreak."To tackle these illnesses would require a huge amount of money," he said. "Treatment is difficult in Afghanistan, and the preventive care patients need cannot be found in these clinics." This article originally appeared in Afghan Recovery Report, a project of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Hayatullah Gaheez is a freelance writer in Jalalabad. Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.Source: AlterNet (US)Author: Hayatullah Gaheez and Amanullah Nasrat, AlterNetPublished: December 7, 2004Copyright: 2004 Independent Media InstituteContact: letters alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/DL: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/20670/Related Articles: Poppy Plant Returns To Afghanistan http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12154.shtmlKabul Bans Opium Poppy Growing, Traffickinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11778.shtmlAfghans Turn To Old Friend: Opiumhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11633.shtml 
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Comment #18 posted by jose melendez on May 28, 2005 at 09:52:10 PT
tear out corruption by the root$
Pure Profithttp://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_07/issue_13/news_02.html Gainful Employmenthttp://community.policeone.com/fusetalk/messageview.cfm?catid=81&threadid=7160 La Luna: http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/categories/guestDrugWarrant/2005/05/27.html#a963On Balancehttp://www.csc.com/newsandevents/news/3461.shtmlBranch and Root (Thank you Secretary Powell)http://schema-root.org/commerce/corporations/military/dyncorp/
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Comment #17 posted by dididadadidit on December 08, 2004 at 09:21:11 PT
Souder Doesn't Care About Opium, Just Cannabis
Souder doesn't care about opium, just cannabis, about which he is totally phobic. The only way Souder is involved in spraying in Afghanistan is if he thinks there is some cannabis hiding out amongst the opium poppies.Cheers?
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Comment #16 posted by Hope on December 07, 2004 at 18:00:11 PT
Souder? Grassley? Bush, himself?
What arrogant son of perdition took it upon himself to have that spraying in Afghanistan done?I'm glad the Taliban is tempered...a prayer was answered...but those Afghans are tough people and astoundingly resilient warriors. They know war and death well...it's almost as good as some of their lives get. They may not have the kind of weaponry and money we have, but they are "mighty" people and should be respected as such.It's not smart to be disrespectful of them. Not smart at all.
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Comment #15 posted by Hope on December 07, 2004 at 17:44:40 PT
"Brute Beasts" or "Civilized"?
Remember when the government gave blankets to the native Americans? A gift of blankets for a hard winter...no buffalo hides to stay warm in. A gift of blankets fresh from the beds of smallpox victims. They got rid of more people probably than with bullets on that one. I think about those little children, those babies...all the people. I'm ashamed that it happened and ashamed of the Inquisition, and the Witch Trials and the Nazis and Polpot and the things Africans have done and are doing to each other. I hate it and I couldn't live if I didn't hate it. We HAVE to watch out for government and be on guard. There are derelict humans in government…just like they are everywhere else. They are even more dangerous when they have the kind of power that government can relegate.The US government and Dynacorp created that new "super" coca and they will create a new "super" poppy if they aren't stopped. The farmers or cartels didn't create a "new" plant out of scientific genius. I know enough about horticultural to see the nature of plants and caring for them at work here. The all powerful (fascist…no respect for the “little people“) government sprays the plants with withering herbicides and the devastated farmers discover, amazingly, that a few plants survived and resisted the poison. The plants and genetics were there all the time...the spraying just pointed them out. They let those
surviving plants produce offspring. 
 
Nature if full of survival phenomenon. One of the peculiarities noticeable in life.As usual, eventually, the downfall or constraint of the aggressors will come, but they hurt so many on the way. I’d like to see that carnage and grief they are bound to create, be minimized, as much as possible. I wish they didn’t do any harm at all…but there are always groups or individuals who impose themselves aggressively upon the lives of others. Everyday the war on drugs proves that it’s wrong and the prohibition lovers and the victims of drug fear hysteria just ignore that, saying all the time that they are fighting a greater harm. Hogwash! No one but a fool would believe them. They ARE the greater harm. You can warn a fellow human…“Don’t do that …it could be dangerous” (not talking about children here…but adults)…but it’s wrong to force him or cage him or persecute him…he’s an equal human…into doing your bidding. Where would we be in this world if people weren’t allowed to take any risks? “Don’t mess with that fire, it will burn you.” “ Don’t go out on that water…you’ll drown.” “You made a knife! Don’t you know you could hurt yourself?” “Wheels are soooooo dangerous…can’t you see that?”Comparing even willful consumption of heinous poison or acid doesn’t fall anywhere near into the same territory as murder, rape, assault, theft, or purposeful destruction of another’s property. To anyone but themselves, the “tactic” of comparing drug use to murder, rape, assault, etc., is obviously more base evasiveness and attempted intellectual sleight of hand on their part. I’m not an anarchist. I know we need some guidelines, understanding, and respect of each other to live as close together as we have to. Wisdom is nothing but understanding and prohibitionists obviously don’t care to practice much of it. They could do good instead of harm…yet they don’t do it. Money can be helpful for getting things done…good things. They have so much money that they have taxed out of us at their disposal…yet they waste it. They are using money they took from us to keep “bought and paid for“, conscienceless, and ignorant jackboots on everyone’s necks. If we didn’t resist, if we didn’t complain, our failure to do so would be nearly as egregious as their ill born plans and actions.
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Comment #14 posted by afterburner on December 07, 2004 at 14:17:18 PT
Sounds Familiar, kaptin, Comment #10
Isn't that just what the Great White Father in Washington, DC, did to the "Indians," the aboriginal First Nations people of this continent, with the aid of the US Army, Indian Reservations, Indian boarding schools, smallpox-infected blankets and the wholesale slaughter of the bison?About Bison http://www.tahtonka.com/bison.html
"... about the Bison, their importance in Indian. culture and some of the many groups. ... the thoughts of many Indian people about the Bison. ..." American Bison http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/american_bison.html
"... The railways crossed not only Indian land - but bison ranges also, and the herds of bison, often numbering hundreds of thousands, had a nasty and all too ..." bison http://redeyevideo.com/buffalo.html
"... Today, there are over 150,000 bison across this country and in Canada. ... The buffalo
people have always stood among our Indian people, from the beginning of time ..." White Wolf's Lodge http://groups.msn.com/WhiteWolfsLodge/videos.msnw
"... WinterHawk. Starring Michael Dante as Winterhawk. A story based in the 1840 Montana frontier. That summer smallpox is wiping out the Blackfeet. ..." Some learn loving lessons from history, some learn Machiavellian tactical manipulation, and some learn nothing!TERROR & TYRANNY FROM THE TOP - THE MACHIAVELLIAN MATRIX
by Christos Lightweaver 
"We have found the enemy, and he is us!" 
- Pogo http://www.heartcom.org/MachMatrix.htm
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on December 07, 2004 at 14:02:25 PT
john wayne 
Glad you like the gif.
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Comment #12 posted by john wayne on December 07, 2004 at 13:29:25 PT
Not to mention
Fat contracts for the chemical companies producing this spray. And expenditures for the helicopters. And recruitment and training for the pilots. And studies of effectiveness. And findings of failure, leading to request for more and better funding for more and newer equipment. Leading to a need for more govenment involvement in a bigger, better funded agency. Which will need to hire more agents. Who will then be put to work writing hand-wringing press releases about the "heroin-poppy" problem in Afghanistan. Which leads to calls for more spraying. Which leads to more fat contracts for the chemical producers. Heroin market expected to be affected? Nah.
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Comment #11 posted by lombar on December 07, 2004 at 13:27:08 PT
GM poopies are next!
Just as plan columbia failed(s), so will aerial spraying just produce poppies with more herion:http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1748/a08.html?397
(Supposedly a coca bush has been bred to produce 8 times more cocaine AND is herbicide resistant.)Production will shift to other countries. It is far too lucrative under the current pogrom. The crop is far too valuable thanks to the war on drugs.
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on December 07, 2004 at 12:35:27 PT:
Some very dirty deeds, indeed
If you go to the link Hope provided, and reda all the way through it, you find verified just what the REAL point of the spraying may be.Namely, destroying Afghanistan's ability to feed itself. A prostrate, hungry vassal state whose agriculture is destroyed under the rubric of the War on Drugs - and dependent upon handouts to stay alive - would be far less troublesome in the future. I submit that this kind of medieval thinking is indeed behind the facade of 'fighting drugs'. We have to sell *somebody* the surplus food we have sitting in warehouses here...
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Comment #9 posted by john wayne on December 07, 2004 at 12:35:12 PT
love the skull and crossbones gif
Next to this article on the FP. Nice work as usual, FoM.
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Comment #8 posted by runruff on December 07, 2004 at 11:07:05 PT:
DEA spray.
To bad we don't have a spray to eradicate the DEA.
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on December 07, 2004 at 10:49:15 PT
It's even more than I recalled!
I remembered the eight and seven...I was thinking 187 million dollars...it's 780 million!"The United States recently announced that it was providing $780 million to combat illicit drugs in Afghanistan, the world's leading source of opium, over the next year. Some of the money will go to the American security firm DynCorp to train and work alongside Afghanistan's new Central Planning and Eradication Force, a police force dedicated to eliminating poppy fields."http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1741/a01.html?397 
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Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on December 07, 2004 at 10:29:25 PT:
A typically stupid move
And a move made in an area where in the past the locals had surface-to-air missiles...and proved willing to sacrifice themselves in order to take out a Soviet troop transport or attack helicopter in the process.You may expect to see those missiles used before too long. Things are rapidly escalating out of control in the Near East, and Uncle largely to blame for the instability. This only makes matters worse. And attempting to do this on the sly only causes suspicion of US policies to develop into even greater antipathy. And swells the ranks of our enemies.How much dumber can Bush's gang get?
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Comment #5 posted by Truth on December 07, 2004 at 09:36:07 PT
the same reasoning
could be applied to the tobacco industry. Cigarettes kill more then all the other drugs combined. We export death at an unprecedented rate. How would we feel if China started spraying poison on North Carolina?
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Comment #4 posted by Max Flowers on December 07, 2004 at 09:16:13 PT
Evil
There is NO WAY that any overseas action by DEA is legal under the Constitution. It's not even truly legal here in the USA! It is incredible and reckless arrogance that makes these guys think that they are authorized to spray poison on the territory of other countries. Pure madness, and basically pure evil.How would these terrorist pilots like it if someone flew over their house, sprayed poisonous chemicals and made their families sick? Would they think that was "A-okay"??
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Comment #3 posted by afterburner on December 07, 2004 at 08:53:15 PT
''Why Do They Hate US?'' 
Duh. End the Drug War. End the backlash against overbearing US policies. Do we really expect to become safer from terrorism as we go bullying, killing and poisoning the rest of the world?{Omardin is not the only person who believes that foreigners – perhaps the Americans – are spraying opium crops with herbicides here as part of a counter-narcotics programme.{Eyewitnesses in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar have reported seeing aircraft spraying poppy fields. Doctors in the region, meanwhile, said the sudden outbreak of skin diseases and respiratory ailments are due to a mysterious chemical they have so far been unable to identify....{"US troops are not involved are not involved in eradication, which would include the spraying of poppy fields which we do not do," US military spokesman Major Mark McCann told Agence France-Presse last week....{US law enforcement agencies such as the DEA and the FBI already maintain a sizable presence in Afghanistan....{Asked about official US denials of their involvement in such a program, Din Mohammad said, "They control the airspace, and no plane can fly over Afghanistan without their permission."...{Mohammad Sediq, 14, said his throat was hoarse from the substance sprayed on the fields.{"Ever since I ate some spinach from our field next to the opium field, I've had a sore throat," he said.}
Scary: Real John Walters and Environmental Apocalypse
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Comment #2 posted by dr slider on December 07, 2004 at 08:44:57 PT:
It shall rain fire and poison
Its raining fire in Fallujah (phosphorus & napalm) and poison in Afganistan (as yet undetermined flavor). Surely there is a passage of the bible that calls this the work of God.Given that, ultimately, there is no difference between good and evil, Satan and the Father(Son) are simply different aspects of the same divine maleness that is but a third of the Trinity. This is certainly a masculine war (weren't they all?) Calling it the work of Satan or God is infantile."Know the male, but keep to the female." Lao
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Comment #1 posted by Dark Star on December 07, 2004 at 08:20:20 PT
Sound Familiar?
Someone is lying, and the US Government is the prime suspect. This is eerily reminiscent of Plan Colombia, and countless other ineffective and counter-productive efforts of similar intent in the past. Only the targets (marijuana, coca, opium poppy), and the victims (Amazonian campesinos, Bekaa Valley farmers, Afghan farmers) change. These efforts are a crime against Nature. I hope that the farmers press their case in the World Court. The US Government will deny jurisdiction, and they will be revealed again as lawless hypocrites.There is a solution to this mess: treat drug abuse where it is problematic as a medical issue.
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