Apr 4th, 2003, 02:31 AM
You want a double standard?
1979, shortly after the end of Vietnam, an imperialist power came to bear on Afghanistan. To counter it, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA, and ironically, the only truly successful one. They conspired to inspire in Afghanistan a resistance movement which would militarily cripple the Soviets by expand their national defense into an offensive holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Moslem countries within the Soviet Union into flash fires of insurrection which would, hopefully, deal a blow as harsh as what America had sustained in the Vietnam engagement. They were more successful than their wildest dreams could ever have predicted. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 130,000 mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries. The grunt mojahedin were totally and utterly clueless that their lives were actually being sacrificed on behalf of the US.
1989, after a decade of profitless hostilities the Soviets withdrew leaving a ruined civiliztion in their wake
War, however, continued without them. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to lend support with money and military equipment, Congress, however, was always a problem. They needed loquid assets that didn't require accounting for. Solution? The mojahedin ordered farmers to plant opium as a "revolutionary tax". The ISI aided operations which produced hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan- Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of the heroin on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between $100bn and $200bn, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.
Oh! The double standard. You might recall a small war against Afghanistan recently where the US tried to put out the militant Moslems who were, SHOCK! AGHAST! manufacturing drugs and performing heinous acts.
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