Dialysis

Don't blame the Afgans for all out drug problems
April 10, 2001
By Rory Cahill

Lefty and Yank Basher

A good mate of mine, Jack Barton, (from News Views and Abuse too!) just got back from a trip to Afganistan, where he met, among other Afgan identities, Ahmed Shah Masood, "Tiger Of Panjshir" and the military leader of the Northern Alliance that is fighting those sculpture-vultures the Taliban. Jack works as a freelance journalist and has travelled widely, including many "hotspots" such Croatia in 1991 and Chiapas State, Mexico in 1994, when the Zapatistas under Subcommandante Marcos occupied the entire province.

To say he knows his shit is an understatement.

The Sunday Herald Sun printed a number of his stories while he was in Afganistan but the best and biggest story for mine, well, just isn't being told.

Afganistan produces about 60-70% of the worlds heroin, supplying all of Western Europe, Russia and increasingly Australia. Shah Masood has done a deal with the Russians to stop trading smack and opium and in return the Russians are arming him to fight the goat-loving peasants that are the Talibs. This is undeniably a good thing.

But in the 90% of Afganistan held by the Taliban, a strange thing has occured. Desperate to win international aid and have Clinton's limited 1998 sanctions removed, the Talibs actually cut opium production by 97% in 2000-01, mainly by burning crops and confiscating farming equipment.

This has resulted in about 100,000 poor peasants, denied the one cash crop that grows in the harsh Afgan soils, becoming refugees and heading to Pakistan to join 1.5 million of their compatriots who have been sheltering in squalid camps since the Russians invaded in 1979.

This season there will be no opium harvested in Afganistan and thus a major drop in world-wide heroin supplies, with accompanying crime waves as addicts steal more and more to pay for more expensive, less pure heroin.

One would think the Americans would be over-joyed by this, especially seeing as George Dubya "Coke And Whisky And Coke For Me Thanks" Bush is now resting his boots on the Oval Office table, especially as not-so-subtle messages were sent indicating the US would drop the sanctions if the Taliban cut the drugs.

Alas, no! Due to its racist and inept ways, the US is convinced hepatitic old Usuma bin Laden personally directs ALL international terrorism from his cave near Kandahar, despite the fact he is on dialysis and the Taliban have taken all his satellite communications equipment away.

That there are 2 billion Muslims on Earth and some of them, like the Chechen Mujahideen currently defeating the Russian Army for the second time in five years, are the best guerilla fighters in the world, seems to elude the US - clearly Usuma bin Laden and his 500 ageing supporters are the root of all evil!

So, because the strictly Muslim Talibs won't betray their culture, religion and nation by giving bin Laden up to the Yanks to be tried by a kangaroo court in Washington, the US has jacked yet harsher sanctions onto poor old Afganistan.

The result? The Taliban are feeling, quite correctly, that the Americans cannot be trusted to keep their promises and have now embarked on a massive, industrial scale preparation for Season 2001-2. They are going to grow more opium and sell more smack to more Western kiddies than in anybody in human history. Jack saw new heroin labs and opium storage sheds being constructed!

What a great result all around. The Taliban will never, ever again bother with anything the West says, hence their glee in blowing the Buddhas at Bamiyan. Usuma bin Laden will never be brought to trial for his ALLEGED involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings and the world will be flooded with yet more smack. [...]
Crikey.com, April, 2001 (Aust.gov pandora archive)
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July 02, 2001
MUSHARRAF, BIN LADEN & THE LASHKAR
by B.Raman

[...] Independent reports from Islamabad and Peshawar suggest that :

• Bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of the Inter-Services Intelligence, (ISI) if not of Gen.Pervez Musharraf himself.
• The recent circulation of copies of bin Laden's video cassette showing him and his followers undergoing training in Afghan territory and the interview of Bakr Atyani, a correspondent of the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) with bin Laden and his aides Abu Hafas al-Masri and Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egypt's outlawed Jihad group, were organised by Pakistani military and ISI officers manning the Taliban's newly-created intelligence agency, which has replaced the Khad, the intelligence agency of the Najibullah regime. In this interview, during which bin Laden was present but did not speak, his two aides warned that "the coming weeks will hold important surprises that will target American and Israeli interests in the world." The interview was reportedly recorded by a camera supplied by the ISI officers of the Taliban's intelligence agency since the correspondent was not allowed to carry any recording equipment when he transited Peshawar on his way to Kandahar to interview bin Laden and his aides.

[...] However, the Taliban has questioned the authenticity of the video cassette and the claims of the journalist to have interviewed bin Laden's aides. Despite this, William B. Milam, the outgoing US Ambassador in Islamabad, contacted the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, Abus Salaam Zaeef , on June 29 and reportedly warned him that in case of a new terrorist attack against American interests by groups associated with bin Laden, Washington would hold the Taliban directly responsible, hinting thereby that any retaliatory strike by the US could be directed against the Taliban's headquarters.
South Asia Analyst Group, July, 2001
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September 19, 2001
Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden.
http://www.janes.com/....shtml
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Nov 01, 2001
Ailing bin Laden ‘treated secretly for kidney disease’
ADAM SAGE IN PARIS; OVERSEAS NEWS
London Times

KIDNEY stones rather than Stealth bombers could deal a mortal blow to Osama bin Laden it appeared yesterday after reports that the al-Qaeda leader recently smuggled himself into an expensive Gulf hospital. Needing urgent treatment for his ailing kidneys, bin Laden, 44, is said to have checked into the American Hospital in Dubai in July. {and/or a peshwar military hospital] Among those with him, it is thought, was Dr Ayman Zawahiri, who as well as being his personal physician is al-Qaeda's second-in-command.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/011101londontimes
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