Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from BANKRUPTING THE THIRD WORLD: How the Global Elite Drown Poor Nations in a Sea of Debt:

“Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent opium trade has soared.” –Dr. Michael Chossudovsky, from article published in RonPaulForums.com on June 25, 2013

In Chapter 5 we mentioned the strategy of engineering or extending armed conflicts in certain mineral-rich regions of the world in order to profit handsomely from such dirty wars.

Well, let’s take one war-torn country and explore that idea a little deeper.
Afghanistan.

What could be gained financially from extending the conflict in Afghanistan? Very little, according to the New York Times.

A 2010 article in that newspaper advised readers the annual economy of Afghanistan was only worth around $12 billion dollars per year.

Essentially that’s a tiny economy. Especially considering the country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) is partially funded by the World Bank, USAID and the IMF.

However, the real truth behind the headlines is that the reported tiny economy is just the official spin. Beneath the surface, both figuratively and literally, lies enormous wealth – and shady dealings (also unreported) to match.


Divide and conquer

It has been claimed by many researchers that the likes of the World Bank and the IMF often work in tandem with major intelligence agencies like the CIA and MI6. Our own research, which includes detailed correspondence and discussions with former senior (Western) intelligence agents on both sides of the Atlantic, supports this claim.

This clandestine collusion between supposedly charitable organizations and intelligence agencies is, by all accounts, most suited to long-term projects like the much heralded War on Drugs and the War on Terror, and so are most frequently associated with such projects.

It’s very apparent the days of Oliver North-style nefarious CIA activities are not some distant bad memory. They were simply a precursor to the far bigger crimes being committed on the world stage right now.

Admittedly, war-torn nations like Afghanistan are often too dangerous for Western governments and companies to officially set up shop and relieve them of their oil, precious minerals or drugs. However, this doesn’t prevent Western intelligence agencies reaping the spoils of war.

These agencies now have this down to a fine art, employing various proven strategies – such as hiring third-party ‘deniable’ private contractors.

In fact, once a region has been categorized as ‘war-torn’ and ‘splintered’ and ‘volatile,’ that’s when the likes of the CIA really come into their own: they decimate the economy of targeted countries as they try to suck out every single precious resource available.

We spoke to one Afghan who told us in no uncertain terms, “If America could steal the air from Afghanistan to make a buck, they would!”

Remember, it is infinitely easier to control a nation’s resources once it has been divided and conquered – not to mention when US-installed puppet leaders like Afghanistan’s President Karzai are ‘in power.’

It’s no secret that Afghanistan has, in the last few years, received billions of dollars in financial aid. This got us thinking. Could there be an ulterior motive here? And could that motive have anything to do with the extremely lucrative heroin trade in this, the world’s (traditionally) number one heroin-producing country?

“The Afghan narcotics economy was a carefully designed project of the CIA, supported by US foreign policy.” –Dr. Chossudovsky, The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade, Global Research article first published in 2005.


Opium = Heroin = Big Bucks

You’ll recall the Taliban had completely decimated Afghanistan’s poppy fields under their version of Sharia Law when they ruled the country – before 9/11 and up until the US-led invasion in late 2001. The heroin trade almost completely dried up.

Today, miracle of miracles, the heroin trade in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, and has been ever since the US, with its Western allies, began its War on Terror invasion.

“Sheer coincidence,” according to the likes of Fox News and other mainstream media!

Oh, really?

Before you accept the theory that America and its allies have no commercial interest in Afghanistan’s poppy fields, let’s consider first how extensive those poppy fields are and how much money they yield those who harvest them.

An NBC News report dated July 7, 2015, claims opium production in Afghanistan “is growing like a weed”.

The report continues, “According to the United Nations, the war-torn nation provides 90 percent of the world's supply of opium poppy, the bright, flowery crop that transforms into one of the most addictive drugs in existence.

“And as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounds the alarm about a worsening heroin epidemic here in the U.S., opium production in Afghanistan shows no signs of slowing down”.

The NBC News report quotes John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, as saying in a speech in May, “Afghanistan has roughly 500,000 acres, or about 780 square miles, devoted to growing opium poppy. That's equivalent to more than 400,000 U.S. football fields — including the end zones”.

And it quotes Nasir Shansab, author of Silent Trees: Power and Passion in War-Torn Afghanistan, as saying opium production has “become part of the economy (bringing) money and imported material and consumer goods into Afghanistan…Afghanistan is poverty-stricken and farmers have difficulty getting proper returns for their normal products. They're almost forced to do that to survive”.

Much has been made of the pledge to end America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2016, keeping in mind at the time of writing there are currently close to 10,000 US troops still there. However, we – and quite a few others, too, it seems – remain skeptical.

A more recent NBC News report, dated October 1, 2015, states, “There are rumblings in Washington that the plan (to withdraw US troops) should be revised and the fall of Kunduz has added impetus to that argument, according to analysts”.

Kunduz, incidentally, is a troubled city in northern Afghanistan.
The same report quotes one Ted Callahan, a Western adviser based in northeast Afghanistan, as saying, “It's certainly given fodder to people who want the levels to stay where they are, if not increase.”

We can’t help wondering if the Kunduz situation is no more than a convenient excuse for the US to reconsider its decision to pull out of Afghanistan. A red herring if you like.

Slightly more dated but nonetheless-still- relevant reports shed additional light on the scale and profitability of Afghanistan’s poppy fields.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2014 Afghan Opium Survey, the Afghan opium cultivation has once again hit a record high.

And a 2005 news article on the site Global Research, by acknowledged drugs wars expert Professor Michel Chossudovsky, makes for telling reading.

Beneath the headlines, “The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade” and “Washington's Hidden Agenda: Restore the Drug Trade,” Professor Chossudovsky writes, “The profits are largely reaped at the level of the international wholesale and retail markets of heroin, as well as in the process of money laundering in Western banking institutions”.

Those institutions likely include the World Bank and other such aid organizations to some extent at least – even if it’s just providing loans to the Afghan Government. Loans that encourage corrupt local politicians to turn a blind eye to the thriving heroin trade.

Professor Chossudovsky continues, “Heroin is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow. One of the ‘hidden’ objectives of the war was precisely to restore the CIA sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes.

“Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored. Opium prices spiraled. By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

“In 2001, under the Taliban, opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai”.

Not sure how the White House or Pentagon spin doctors would explain those stats!

But wait, there's more when it comes Afghanistan! Oh yes, we are talking about one of the biggest money grabs in history…

Another excerpt on this subject from BANKRUPTING THE THIRD WORLD: How the Global Elite Drown Poor Nations in a Sea of Debt:

Afghanistan also has a multi-trillion dollar mining industry thanks to their deposits of rare, precious and superconducting minerals.

The country’s Ministry of Mines lists numerous large-scale mining operations in Afghanistan right now. Virtually all these operations are being managed by Western companies and their inevitable contractors – and, of course, the World Bank and other ‘international aid’ (we use that term advisedly) organizations, which are either actively involved or otherwise providing ‘support services.’

For example, on the eve of publishing this book there are numerous planned pipelines thru the region, including the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline whose official financiers include the World Bank and USAID – and no doubt the CIA are involved on some level also, although that’s unconfirmed and mere speculation on our part. That pipeline, if construction proceeds as expected, will transport enormous amounts of gas and oil from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan and into India before being shipped worldwide.

Regarding specific mining operations in Afghanistan, Wikipedia mentions, “It is believed that among other things the country holds $3 trillion in untapped mineral deposits. In December 2013, President Karzai claimed the mineral deposits are actually worth $30 trillion”.

Hmmm…

30 trillion US dollars.

Quite a substantial amount for a ‘Third World’ country, wouldn’t you agree?

Wikipedia also states that in Afghanistan there are “1400 mineral fields, containing barite, chromite, coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, natural gas, petroleum, precious and semi-precious stones, salt, sulfur, talc, zinc among many other minerals. Gemstones include high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby”.
A 2010 NY Times article headlined “U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan” provides an excellent summary of the abundance of rare, and often superconducting, minerals in the country.

The article states, “The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe”.

Remember, all the aforementioned is simply an indication of how much recent invaders – we refer to the Americans (and their allies) and before them the Russians, of course – stood to gain by invading Afghanistan.

We digress for a moment, but this is worth noting: similar rewards, in the tens of trillions of dollars, were on offer for those who invaded Iraq in recent times – in this instance oil and minerals whose profits flowed, and still flow, into the West.
To quote CNN News again, this time from an April 15, 2013 item on its website: “Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil”.

Excerpts from this revealing article follow:

“It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.

“Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.

“From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.

“The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.

“Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion”.

The CNN News report quotes General John Abizaid, former head of US Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, as saying, “Of course it's about oil; we can't really deny that”.

It also quotes former Senator and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel as confirming, “People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are”. Chagel, by the way, is a Vietnam vet and winner of two Purple Hearts, so it’s little wonder he tells it as he sees it.

The report concludes, “For the first time in about 30 years, Western oil companies are exploring for and producing oil in Iraq from some of the world's largest oil fields and reaping enormous profit. And while the U.S. has also maintained a fairly consistent level of Iraq oil imports since the invasion, the benefits are not finding their way through Iraq's economy or society”.

So, let's make no mistake, the spoils of the War on Terror are most likely the biggest spoils of any war in history.

And, in such times, the big Western corporations and their contractors – and of course the aforementioned international aid organizations – are inevitably to the fore. Their representatives have uncharitably been referred to by others as EHMs, or economic hit men. Uncharitable perhaps, but, we suspect, very apt.

Essentially, these EHMs orchestrate events by corrupting local politicians, softening the ground for the foot soldiers and multinational companies to carry out the actual hit.

Today We Drop Bombs, Tomorrow We Build Bridges: How Foreign Aid Became a Casualty of War

The “War on Terror” has politicized foreign aid in a way never before seen, with often devastating consequences. Aid workers are being killed in unprecedented numbers, and civilians in war-torn countries abandoned to their fate. From the battlefield in Afghanistan to the frontier refugee camps in Pakistan, the ravaged streets of Mogadishu to the tense flashpoint of the Turkey-Syria border, Peter Gill travels to some of the most conflict-stricken places on earth to reveal the new relationship between aid agencies and western security. While some agencies have clung to their neutrality, he finds others risking their impartiality in their pursuit of official funding.

In a world where the advance of Islamic State constitutes the gravest affront to humanitarian practice and principle faced in decades, Gill poses the crucial question—can Western nations go to war in a country and aid it at the same time?