'Deskundigen' 62

They were not going forth to prove the might of the United States. They were going forth to prove the might of justice and right, and all the world accepted them as crusaders, and their transcendent achievement has made all the world believe in America as it believes in no other nation… The moral obligation that rests upon us… [is] … make good their redemption of the world.

President Woodrow Wilson. September 25, 1919.

Het waren Amerikaanse presidenten, Wilson en Roosevelt, die de aanzet gaven tot… een begin van orde… in de mondiale politiek en economie.' 

Geert Mak. Pagina 463 van Reizen zonder John.

They… think America is just an ordinary nation and so America should act like just an ordinary nation. They don’t believe we have a special message for the world or a special mission to preserve our greatness for the betterment of not only ourselves but all of humanity.

Sarah Palin, ‘Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election.’  December 9, 2010.

Afghanistan has been the greatest illicit opium producer in the entire world, ahead of Burma (Myanmar), the ‘Golden Triangle’, and Latin America since 1992, excluding the year 2001. [1] Afghanistan is the main producer of opium in the ‘Golden Crescent’.  Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 92% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. [2] This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers. [3] In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families. [4] In addition to opiates, Afghanistan is also the largest producer of cannabis (mostly as hashish) in the world.[5][6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

Hoe is het te verklaren dat de westerse mainstream journalistiek, de ‘Europa-deskundigen,’ de ‘Amerika-deskundigen,’ de westerse opiniemakers en de westerse politici hier geen serieus onderzoek naar doen? Hoe komt het dat een land met ‘voortreffelijke informatiesystemen’ en ‘briljante strategen en politieke analisten’ hun vijanden bewapenen? En vanwaar de ‘conspiracy of silence’?

UN: Afghan opium poppy cultivation up 18 percent

By HEIDI VOGT | Associated Press – Tue, Nov 20, 2012 10:18 AM EST

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan efforts to stamp out opium poppy cultivation are failing because of high prices for the illicit crop, pushing farmers to grow 18 percent more in 2012 than last year, the U.N. said in a report released Tuesday.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw ingredient in heroin, providing about 80 percent of the global crop. Crop sales fund insurgents and criminal gangs in Afghanistan, making it difficult for the Afghan government to establish control in areas where the economy is driven by black-market opium sales.

Farmers planted 154,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2011, up from the 131,000 in 2011.

‘An increase of 18 percent is a serious alarm signal. It is a wakeup call,’ said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, which prepared the report along with the Afghan Counternarcotics Ministry.

Het mag dan wel een ‘serious alarm signal’ zijn voor drugsbestrijders, maar geenszins voor de NAVO die de uitgestrekte papavervelden niet bombardeert met het brandbare napalm of met een ontbladeringsmiddel zoals de Amerikanen in Vietnam op grote schaal deden, of met  herbiciden zoals ze nu nog steeds doen met de coca-velden in Zuid Amerika. Waarom treedt men niet op? Sinds de illegale Amerikaanse en Britse inval in 2001 is volgens de United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) de productie van opium in Afghanistan van 185 ton omhoog geschoten naar 5800 ton in 2011, een bijna verdertigvoudiging, terwijl het land doorkruist wordt door westerse militairen en Nederlandse instructeurs er de politie opleiden. Ondertussen bericht  het UNODC al jarenlang dat:

the Taliban and other anti-government forces are making massive amounts of money from the drug business. In Afghanistan, authorities impose a charge (called ushr) on economic activity, traditionally set at 10% of income. Opium farming may have generated $50-$70 million of such income in 2008. Furthermore, levies imposed on opium processing and trafficking may have raised an additional $200-$400 million. 'With so much drug-related revenue, it is not surprising that the insurgents' war machine has proven so resilient, despite the heavy pounding by Afghan and allied forces', said the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa.

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2008-11-27.html

Dit feit is onomstreden en wordt door zowel Amerikaanse generals, de CIA, de DEA als Amerikaanse Congresleden keer op keer gemeld. Desondanks ondernemen de NAVO onder leiding van de Amerikaanse strijdkrachten niets hiertegen. Sterker nog:

U.S. Marines patrol in front of a poppy field in a village in the Golestan district of Farah province, May 4, 2009.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has investigated 56 soldiers in Afghanistan on suspicion of using or distributing heroin, morphine or other opiates during 2010 and 2011, newly obtained data shows. Eight soldiers died of drug overdoses during that time.

While the cases represent just a slice of possible drug use by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, they provide a somber snapshot of the illicit trade in the war zone, including young Afghans peddling heroin, soldiers dying after mixing cocktails of opiates, troops stealing from medical bags and Afghan soldiers and police dealing drugs to their U.S. comrades.

In a country awash with poppy fields that provide up to 90 percent of the world’s opium, the U.S. military struggles to keep an eye on its far-flung troops and monitor for substance abuse.  Photos of U.S. and Afghan Troops Patrolling Poppy Fields June 2012   http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=104886

Hier herhaalt de geschiedenis zich. Vietnam revisited.

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is a major, nonfiction book on heroin trafficking—specifically in Southeast Asia from before World War II up to (and including) the Vietnam War. Published in 1972, the book was the product of eighteen months of research and at least one trip to Laos by Alfred W. McCoy [1] who was the principal author and who wrote Politics of Heroin while seeking a PhD in Southeast Asian history at Yale University. Cathleen B. Read, co-author and graduate student, also spent time there during the war…

Thesis

Its most groundbreaking feature was its documentation of CIA complicity and aid to the Southeast Asian opium/heroin trade; along with McCoy's Congressional testimony, its initially controversial thesis has gained a degree of mainstream acceptance. The central idea is that at the time, the vast majority of heroin produced was produced in the Golden Triangle, from which: ‘It is transported in the planes, vehicles, and other conveyances supplied by the United States. The profit from the trade has been going into the pockets of some of our best friends in Southeast Asia. The charge concludes with the statement that the traffic is being carried on with the indifference if not the closed-eye compliance of some American officials and there is no likelihood of its being shut down in the foreseeable future.’ [2] Air America, which was covertly owned and operated by the CIA, was used for this transport, in particular. At the same time, the heroin supply was partly responsible for the parlous state of US Army morale in Vietnam: ‘By mid 1971 Army medical officers were estimating that about 10 to 15 per cent... of the lower ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users.’ [3]

Having interviewed Maurice Belleux, former head of the French SDECE intelligence agency, Mc Coy also uncovered parts of the French Connection scheme, as the French military agency had financed all of its covert operations, during the First Indochina War, from its control of the Indochina drug trade. [4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_W._McCoy

De Amerikaanse regeringen worden al langere tijd door betrouwbare bronnen ervan beschuldigd betrokken te zijn (geweest)  bij handel in drugs.

Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno [2] […] born February 11, 1934) is a former Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military governor of Panama from 1983 to 1989. [3] In the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States he was removed from power, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. […]

Although the relationship did not become contractual until 1967, Noriega worked with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s until the 1980s. [9] In 1988 grand juries in Tampa and Miami indicted him on U.S. federal drug charges.  [10][11]

The 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded: ‘The saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar).’ Noriega was allowed to establish ‘the hemisphere's first "narcokleptocracy’’.’ [12] One of the large financial institutions that he was able to use to launder money was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which was shut down at the end of the Cold War by the FBI. Noriega shared his cell with ex-BCCI executives in the facility known as ‘Club Fed’.

In the 1988 U.S. presidential election, Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis highlighted this history in a campaign commercial attacking his opponent, Vice President (and former CIA Director) George H. W. Bush, for his close relationship with ‘Panamanian drug lord Noriega.’ [13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega

Vanaf het begin heeft de CIA, met medeweten van Amerikaanse presidenten,  overal ter wereld illegale activiteiten ondernomen, zoals gedocumenteerd wordt aangetoond in onder andere het vuistdikke boek van New York Times- journalist Tim Weiner, getiteld: Een Spoor van Vernieling. De Geschiedenis van de CIA, en William Blum's Rogue State. De Amerikaanse interventies varieerden van het ten val brengen van democratisch gekozen regeringen in Afrika, Azie en het Amerikaanse continent tot het verkopen van wapens aan het fundamentalistische bewind in Iran om met de opbrengsten ervan terroristische aanslagen van de Nicaraguaanse Contra’s financieel te steunen, dit laatste in strijd met het expliciete verbod van het Amerikaanse Congres, maar met goedkeuring van president Reagan. Gezien deze achtergrond kan het niet verbazingwekkend zijn dat Washington de Afghaanse papavervelden met rust laat en daarmee de wapenaankopen van de Taliban laat financieren, en wel omdat het militair industrieel complex daar baat bij heeft. Deze zinloze oorlog moet op de een of andere manier worden gelegitimeerd tegenover de bevolking die dan ook niet massaal protesteert tegen de gigantische geldverspilling van het militair industrieel complex, dat 58 procent van de ‘discretionary federal budget’ krijgt in verband met de zogeheten ‘National Security.’ Niet alleen spelen er grote financiele belangen, maar ook de carrierebelangen van beroeps militairen, en hoge ambtenaren die al zovele jaren de touwtjes in handen hebben. En zolang de commerciele media direct of indirect betrokken zijn bij het behartigen van de belangen van de rijken spelen die de propagandistische rol die hen is toebedeeld. Na een dipje in het begin van de jaren negentig toen de Russen geen vijand meer wensten te zijn van het Westen zijn desondanks de Amerikaanse militaire uitgaven sterk gestegen, het afgelopen decennium zijn ze bijna verdubbeld. Daarnaast is de VS veruit de grootste wapenverkoper ter wereld.

Global military expenditure stands at over $1.7 trillion in annual expenditure at current prices for 2011 (or $1.63 trillion dollars at constant 2010 prices), and has been rising in recent years.

Voor het machtige militair industrieel complex is oorlog en de dreiging ermee uiterst lucratief. Daarentegen verdient het niets aan vrede, zoals de cijfers duidelijk maken:

Spending For Peace Vs Spending For War

In a similar report from 2004, the SIPRI authors also noted that, ‘There is a large gap between what countries are prepared to allocate for military means to provide security and maintain their global and regional power status, on the one hand, and to alleviate poverty and promote economic development, on the other.’

Indeed, compare the military spending with the entire budget of the United Nations:

The United Nations and all its agencies and funds spend about $30 billion each year, or about $4 for each of the world’s inhabitants. This is a very small sum compared to most government budgets and it is less than three percent of the world’s military spending. Yet for nearly two decades, the UN has faced financial difficulties and it has been forced to cut back on important programs in all areas, even as new mandates have arisen. Many member states have not paid their full dues and have cut their donations to the UN’s voluntary funds. As of December 31, 2010, members’ arrears to the Regular Budget topped $348 million, of which the US owed 80%.

— UN Financial Crisis, Global Policy Forum (accessed May 2, 2011)

The UN was created after World War II with leading efforts by the United States and key allies.

The UN was set up to be committed to preserving peace through international cooperation and collective security.

Yet, the UN’s entire budget is just a tiny fraction of the world’s military expenditure, approximately 1.8%

While the UN is not perfect and has many internal issues that need addressing, it is revealing that the world can spend so much on their military but contribute so little to the goals of global security, international cooperation and peace.

As well as the above links, for more about the United Nations, see the following:

This web site’s section on the United Nations and Development looks at its role in fighting poverty and other issues, plus some of the problems it faces.

The United Nations web site

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending - Spendingforpeacevsspendingforwar

Maar ondanks al dit Amerikaans geweld blijkt het imperium niet in staat te zijn de hegemonie te handhaven. De Amerikaanse Emily S. Rosenberg, hoogleraar Geschiedenis aan de University of California, schrijft in haar essay Consuming the American Century daarover:

Rather than creating an ‘immense American internationalism,’ however, the American Century radiated into a globalized culture of consumption, in which an alluring variety of consumer products and entertainments served ultimately to undermine the hallmark of the American Century and ultimately became its undoing.

Om te begrijpen waarom dit zo is dient men allereerst beschrijven hoe dit systeem tot stand is gekomen. Professor Rosenberg:

U.S. productive capacity became so vast by the 1890s that, when a global economic contraction sent the domestic economy into a decline, business groups, politricans, and journalists all agreed that overproduction (not a scarcity of goods) was emerging as the major problem of the age. Abundance had become a burden of sorts; easing that burden required the opening of new markets. U.S. exporters and politicians became preoccupied with finding new buyers abroad, so much so that the allure of potential foreign markets shaped U.S. foreign policy at the turn of the twentieth century.

Meer daarover morgen.