Look into the eyes of a liar. Tony Blair standing before the packed ranks of McLabour at his free-market-Stalinist party conference. Fully erect with the aphrodisiac of war, he pumped the air full of great concerns. In between introducing privatisation and religious segregation in schools he claimed that Afghanistan, in the shape of the Taliban, “produce 90% of the world’s heroin.”
Now let us not get dewy eyed about the poor old Taliban. The Taliban are what would happen to the U.K. if we had 25 years of war and then were taken over by a loose collection of right wing thugs headed up by a fat Sun columnist. Compassion and tolerance would be for the weak.

The Taliban did indeed begin their fragile life by producing some of the biggest opium crops of recent times. According to the United Nations Drug Control Programme, the Taliban produced an enormous 4600 metric tonnes of opium in 1999, and 3276 tonnes in 2000. Being as they understand supply and demand in the only true free market on the planet, narcotics, they withheld supply in order not to deflate the price. Then in May 2001, Colin Powell, a close friend of the Taliban, gave the regime $43 million in an open bribe to thank them for what has now been revealed as one of the most successful ‘wars on drugs‘ ever seen. The Taliban did indeed reduce their cultivation of opium, by an enormous 91%. Production of opium in Afghanistan fell from 3276 tonnes in 2000 to 185 tonnes in 2001 (UNDCP). This happened because the ‘evil’ Mullah Omar ordered a ban (as reported by the U.S. State Department), in order to gain some international acceptance. The 185 tonnes produced were, in fact, mainly produced by the so-called ‘Northern Alliance‘, another loose collection of right wing thugs and maniacs.

The New York Times (May 24, 2001 Barry Berak ‘Taliban Ban on Drug Crops Is Working‘), ABC News (January 3, 2001 “Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Inam ul-Haq’s claims to have eliminated all opium plantations in Taliban controlled territories appears to be true”) and the AP wire service (Kathy Gannon, “UN drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan, once the world’s largest producer, since banning poppy cultivation in July.”) all reported the story. Only one news outlet, the LA Times, argued against paying off the Taliban in one opinion column.

The reality is that the Taliban do not produce heroin at all. They produce opium. They have already sold the raw opium to the people who really do the business, mainly Turkish, Russian and Pakistani processors and dealers. The opium poppy cultivating season runs from November to May/June. So there are currently no poppy fields and with the bombing it is unlikely there will be any soon. So when Tony Blair says that “we will bomb their poppy fields,” maybe he is just trying to do a bit of extra ploughing to help them out. Or maybe he is just a liar.

Judge for yourself. The bombing has, pretty obviously, produced panic in the area. Uncertainty reigns, just like on the NASDAQ or the DJI. The narcotic ‘market‘ fell. But not inside Afghanistan. The opium had left. The market fell inside Turkey, Pakistan, Tajikistan and most importantly Uzbekistan. The market fell inside the coalition countries. The coalition countries are the ones who are releasing tonnes and tonnes of both raw opium and processed heroin onto the market. “Traders from Peshawar reported that the price of opium had plunged from $700 a kilo to $90 since September 11...” (The Chicago Tribune) and on September 29, “A Downing Street spokesman says there is evidence of a sudden movement of opium out of neighbouring Pakistan where it was being stockpiled.”

So, not only are there hardly any poppy fields inside Afghanistan, the ones that are operating are controlled by the coalition‘s allies, the Northern Alliance, and the coalition countries are the ones dumping super cheap smack onto the market ready to flood the major markets - Europe, Russia and the eastern seaboard of the U.S.

The unpalatable truths about the global narcotics business is that it acts as a major lubricant for ‘legitimate‘ business interests. And governments. Musharaff’s government are up to their pockmarked arms in heroin dealing. But then so are the Uzbek government, the Tajik government, the Dagestan ‘government‘, the Ukraine government, the Turkmenistan government and, of course, the Russians. But then so are the big opium producers, the Burmese, ‘just‘ the other side of India, whose murderous concentration camp regime is backed by the British. And no one is going to bomb their poppy fields, despite the 800,000 in slave labour camps (UNHCR report 1999) and a mass slaughter of its own and neighbouring citizens. No sir, far from bombing anyone the wonderful Premier Oil are even building an oil pipeline through Burma just to show how supportive we are.

So, we end with questions. Why would Tony Blair lie so blatantly? Why are our ‘allies‘ allowed to produce, ship, profit and even dump cheap opium without censure when Afghanistan is not? Why is no one predicting a debilitating flood of cheap heroin on to the streets of London, Paris and Brussels but also one that will destabilise the central Asian states like it did with Pakistan when Afghanistan was under the Northern Alliance? Because it seems that rather than destroying the heroin routes they have, in fact, been strengthened, retained and controlled. But for whose benefit. Yours. Mine? Or the liars amongst us?

Thanks to Mike Ruppert (www.copvcia.com).

Adam Porter is an editor at Mao Magazine