World-News

Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "Efforts by the United Nations (UN), the US military and the Indian government to curb opium production in Afghanistan since 2007 have been largely ineffective, due in large part to the ties between the drug trade and the Taliban. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material harvested from poppies to make heroin, as well as alkaloids like codeine and morphine. According to two cables released this month by WikiLeaks, Afghanistan's supply of opium exceeds the world's demand for heroin, with its unsold stock currently totaling 12,400 tons. Taliban-linked drug cartels emerging along the southern border of the country, where 99 percent of production takes place, influence the majority of poppy cultivation by coercing farmers into growing the crops for a strong and well-supplied insurgency."

http://www.truth-out.org/opium-production-afghanistan-strong-and-corrupt-ever66611

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U.S. Marines Guard Afghanistan Poppy Fields For Heroin Production

U.S. Marines, sponsored by the U.S. taxpayer, stand vigilant watch over poppy fields in Afghanistan ensuring that the world is supplied with plenty of smack.

http://is.gd/CJKvtE


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=US+Marines
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=poppy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=opium
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=heroin
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=taxpayer
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=insurgen
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Taliban
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=WikiLeaks
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Nadia+Prupis

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"I ask our foreign friends not to interfere in our internal affairs, not to interfere in our constitution,'' Karzai said on Tuesday.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158632.html


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Karzai
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Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "The official line of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO command in Afghanistan, is that the war against Afghan insurgents is vital to the security of all the countries providing troops there. In fact, however, NATO was given a central role in Afghanistan because of the influence of U.S. officials concerned with the alliance, according to a US military officer who was in a position to observe the decision-making process."

http://www.truth-out.org/how-afghanistan-became-a-war-nato66498

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A Real December Review for Afghanistan
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/03-12



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=ISAF
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=insurgent
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Gareth+Porter
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Greg+Kaufmann

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By The Irish Sun

A senior Republican senator has said a plan should be devised for American troops to remain permanently in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27175.htm



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Republican
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"US soldiers have warned us that wherever they come under attack from militants they would retaliate against civilian population and such incidents had happened many times," Haji Khudai Noor, a resident of Kajaki district, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

http://bit.ly/fnHNIZ


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Helmand
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=civilian+deaths
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http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/10111/



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/31-1



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Amanda+Terkel

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One large part of the problem is that the United States is not demanding accountability for outgoing funds from U.S. companies which have little incentive to fully disclose where the U.S. money is going.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cant-account-for-billions-spent-in-afghanistan-2010-12


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
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http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/10100/



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Obama
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Afghanistan
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In These Times
by Noam Chomsky

08/03/10

The War Logs ? a six-year archive of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, released on the Internet by the organization WikiLeaks ? documents a grim struggle becoming grimmer, from the U.S. perspective. And for the Afghans, a mounting horror. The War Logs, however valuable, may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren?t successful ? rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad...

http://tinyurl.com/2cxo8cg



Has Congress become useless?

Cato Institute
by Gene Healy

08/03/10

Has Congress become ?a useless appendix on the governmental structure?? That was what then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. J. William Fulbright, D-Ark., feared in 1968, according to newly released transcripts from the committee?s closed-session debates over Vietnam. Unless Congress was willing to assert itself on the war, he said, ?I do not see how we have any real function.? Last week found Congress once again doing a good imitation of a vestigial organ, as the House forked over $37 billion more for our endless Afghan adventure...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12023



Alpha dogs

San Francisco Chronicle
by Jon Carroll

08/03/10

The interesting thing about those 90,000 leaked documents from WikiLeaks about the Afghanistan war was how unsurprising they were?. They told us we were doing badly in Afghanistan, which, duh. ? Secrecy for the sake of secrecy is what got us here, from way back in the halcyon days of the invasion of Iraq. Remember when you weren?t supposed to call it an ?invasion? ?? Obama ain?t Bush, but he apparently is equally fanatical about stopping leaks in his White House. ? Well, good luck on that one. He should be grateful for something like WikiLeaks, which at least took the time to redact certain documents that might put American soldiers in harm?s way...

http://tinyurl.com/266xx6m


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
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