The National Crop of Afghanistan
Baron Bodissey writing at
The Gates of Vienna points out a couple of interesting things about terrorism, funding and the US Government's drug policies:
Jihad and the Dope Trade
The war against the Great Islamic Jihad is not a static one. Our armed forces and intelligence agencies learn from experience and design new techniques and technologies to meet the requirements of 21st century asymmetrical warfare.
Our enemies are adapting at the same time. The Islamic zealots behind the current war are developing new strategies to counter the efforts of the Western powers. As Middle Eastern governments crack down on the Islamic “charities” under pressure from the United States and its allies, the mujahideen in various Islamofascist terrorist groups find themselves suffering from a lack of funds.
To compensate, the jihadis are adopting creative alternatives. One of the most lucrative examples is the heroin smuggling business.
He then quotes from an article by David E. Kaplan in last week’s U.S. News and World Report,
Paying For Terror -- here is an excerpt:
Ancient smuggling routes from the Silk Road to the Arabian Sea are being supercharged with tons of heroin and billions of narcodollars. Within Afghanistan, drug-fueled corruption is pervasive; governors, mayors, police, and military are all on the take. A raid this year in strategically located Helmand province came up with a whopping 9 1/2 tons of heroin--stashed inside the governor’s own office.
The smuggling routes lead from landlocked Afghanistan to the south and east through Pakistan, to the west through Iraq, and to the north through central Asia. Throughout the region the amounts of drugs seized are jumping, along with rates of crime, drug addiction, and HIV infection. Particularly hard hit are Afghanistan’s impoverished northern neighbors, the former Soviet republics of Kirgizstan and Tajikistan. Widely praised demonstrations in Kirgizstan this year, which overthrew the regime of strongman Askar Akayev, have brought to power an array of questionable figures. “Entire branches of government are being directed by individuals tied to organized crime,” warns Svante Cornell of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University. “The whole revolution smells of opium.”
He then closes with these thoughts:
Consider this: if heroin (and other drugs) were no longer illegal, but were simply regulated by the government as are alcohol and tobacco, if an addict’s fix were $2 instead of $40, how would that affect the funding of terrorist enterprises?
Before the comments and emails come down on me like a ton of bricks, let me hasten to say that an initial increase in the addiction rate is a certainty, if drugs were legalized — look at what happened when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. But the increase in heroin addiction would not lead to an increase in the crime rate. At present, heroin users commit crimes — muggings, burglaries, etc. — to pay for their fix.
As heroin consumption stabilized — much like alcohol before it — its use would confined to those who employ mind-altering substances to self-medicate.
But would that human toll be worse than the consequences of our current policies?- We imprison thousands upon thousands of users and low-level dealers, thereby turning them into hardened criminals.
- We enrich the kingpins of crime as our users pay the inflated prices created by keeping drugs illegal.
- We turn addicts into muggers and burglars and murderers in order to feed their habit.
- We enable cynicism and corruption as the drugs continue to flow and police forces, officials, and whole governments are bribed and bought off and extorted by the drug barons.
On the other hand, how many 7-11 clerks have been shot by cigarette addicts cleaning out the cash register to pay for their fix? How many governments are corrupted by the trade in illicit alcohol?
It’s time to reconsider the havoc we wreaked with our “War on Drugs.” It is a war every bit as successful as the one we waged on poverty, and both “wars” have done more harm than good.
This is not to excuse or promote drug addiction. We must recognize the limits of what can reasonably be done by mere human beings.
Attempting to stifle the addictive aspects of human nature is an exercise in futility. We simply cannot do it.
Go ahead and flame me. But remember this: when Johnny Dopefiend pays for his latest fix, his money eventually works its way into the pockets of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his comrades in jihad.
Is this what we want?
Very good thoughts -- the comments are great to read as well.
Baron received some comments that he felt required amplification so he subsequently
posted this:
The Two Faces of Nanny
My previous post about jihad and heroin caused such an unexpectedly vigorous response in the comments that a clarification is required.
Point One: Heroin will not be legalized in the United States for the foreseeable future. But a conversation about the damage done by its proscription — both socially and to our national security — is in order.
Point Two: If heroin were legalized without any concomitant changes in our current degraded narcissistic entitlement culture, the results would be disastrous.
The Nanny State encroaches on us more and more every year, making sure we stay warm, eat our vegetables, and generally behave like good little children. As our benevolent and all-seeing parental substitute, Nanny supplies us with all good things and takes care of our every need.
But the government giveth, and the government taketh away. The flip side of Nanny is that she keeps the liquor cabinet locked to make sure that her charges don’t do irresponsible things.
Until the federal government is reformed according to its original constitutional mandate, which means that it would of necessity cease interfering (“for your own good”) in every aspect of its citizens’ lives, the legalization of heroin and other narcotics would be disastrous.
And one more:
We need to view drug users in a different light. As commenter Jesse Clark said in the previous thread, “Call me cold and heartless, but I’ve always believed that everybody is responsible for their own actions.”
It is meddling. Frowned upon when it is a neighbor but lusted after when it is a politician.
Posted by DaveH at December 11, 2005 10:32 PM