http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-76675-Afghan-opium-growth-sees-%22alarming%22-rise,-UN-sayshttp://news.antiwar.com/2012/11/22/libyan-tunisian-leaders-oppose-arming-syrian-rebels/
Megarif said the two are opposed to foreign intervention in Syria and opposed to providing foreign weaponry to rebel factions, adding that they aren’t at all clear how representative the self-proclaimed rebel leaders actually are.
That’s because even if the alliance rubber stamps the request, it doesn’t necessarily mean the nations that have the missiles will automatically do so, and the parliaments of either Germany or the Netherlands, the closest suppliers, will presumably want to vote on it. To avoid a vote Turkey could go with the US as a supplier, but they are much farther away.
Afghan opium growth sees "alarming" rise
November 23, 2012 - Updated 231 PKT
From Web Edition
Libyan, Tunisian Leaders Oppose Arming Syrian Rebels
Recent Regime-Change Nations Not Recognizing Rebel Umbrella Group
by Jason Ditz, November 22, 2012
Libyan interim President Mohammed al-Megarif and Tunisia President Moncef Marzouki today announced at a joint press conference that they are withholding recognition to the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (CORF), a move that will have major impact as both leaders are the product of regime changes the CORF are hoping to reproduce.
Megarif said the two are opposed to foreign intervention in Syria and opposed to providing foreign weaponry to rebel factions, adding that they aren’t at all clear how representative the self-proclaimed rebel leaders actually are.
The comments from Megarif are particularly surprising because his government has been bankrolling the Syrian National Council (SNC), one of the other would-be rebel leadership groups, providing more than half of their operating budget.
The big difference appears to be that the SNC did not have any role in fighting, while CORF is trying to organize themselves as a combat leader, and a distributor of foreign arms. Megarif did reiterate calls for Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign, but seemed uncomfortable with Western ambitions to repeat the Libyan war in Syria.
and......
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/11/22/russia-warns-nato-over-patriot-missile-deployment-on-syria-border/
Russia Warns NATO Over Patriot Missile Deployment on Syria Border
Missiles Won't Be Operational for Weeks
by Jason Ditz, November 22, 2012
NATO is expected to quickly endorse Turkey’s request for Patriot missile deployments along the Syrian border. This isn’t necessarily going to mean the missiles will even be sent to Turkey soon, however, and even the most optimistic say it will be weeks before they are operational.
That’s because even if the alliance rubber stamps the request, it doesn’t necessarily mean the nations that have the missiles will automatically do so, and the parliaments of either Germany or the Netherlands, the closest suppliers, will presumably want to vote on it. To avoid a vote Turkey could go with the US as a supplier, but they are much farther away.
The whole deployment idea is rubbing Russia the wrong way, however, and they are warning both Turkey and NATO against the plan, saying they should be trying to help broker peace instead of militarizing the border.
Though a handful of artillery shells from Syria have strayed into Turkey, officials concede they aren’t sure who fired them, the strikes have been intermittent, and it probably isn’t economical to send $3 million interceptors up to shoot down single artillery shells at any rate. The move is therefore primarily political, and effort by Turkey to flex their muscles in the region, but weeks of delays is putting it so far after the fact it is making the move seem even more ridiculous.
and drugs and the drug war in Afghanistan....
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-76675-Afghan-opium-growth-sees-%22alarming%22-rise,-UN-says
Afghan opium growth sees "alarming" rise
November 23, 2012 - Updated 231 PKT
From Web Edition
4 4 0 0
KABUL: Afghanistan needs to be more serious about fighting drugs after an "alarming" 18 percent increase in opium cultivation this year, the U.N. drugs agency said on Tuesday.
The rise was mainly due to high prices and a failure of state agencies to work together to wipe out a trade that helps fund the Taliban-led insurgency, a United Nations report said.
Some experts say the departure of most NATO-led forces by the end of 2014 could trigger a spike in the growth of poppy in a war-torn country responsible for 90 percent of the world's opium, a trend likely to worry western governments.
Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Afghanistan country representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), warned opium cultivation could climb higher next year if the government failed to better coordinate its efforts and make counter narcotics a priority.
"If the other arms of the governments do not move forward seriously on counter narcotics, then next year we will see more increases. This is a very dangerous (trend)," he told reporters.
"There's been some turning of a blind eye ... and this is coming back to the government now with a vengeance. The government will now have to deal with these issues in a more dramatic matter."
"We think the numbers are alarming, but we are not panicking," Lemahieu added. "We are convinced we can turn it around. But we need to act today."
But while poppy cultivation increased, production was down 36 percent to an estimated 3,700 metric tons caused by a combination of disease affecting the crop and bad weather.
The farm gate value of opium fell 49 percent in 2012 to $717 million, a figure equivalent to 4 percent of the country's tiny economy, it said.
Ninety-five percent of opium growing took place in nine provinces in the south and west of the country, many of which provide popular support for the Taliban who encourage farmers to grow poppy rather than far less lucrative agricultural products.
The UNODC last year estimated the opium trade may have earned the Taliban $700 million, up from $200 million a year in the previous decade, with traffickers earning billions more.
WEAK PERFORMANCE
Zarar Ahmad Muqbel Osmani, the minister of counter narcotics, said there was political will to tackle the problem but insecurity and poor implementation of anti-opium programs had proved costly.
"There was a weak performance of state authorities in providing alternative livelihoods," he said. "In some cases, people were cultivating poppies in areas close to local authorities and this is something that needs to be taken seriously."
Opium cultivation rose 19 percent in southern Helmand province, which accounts for almost half of Afghanistan's poppy, while growth surged in parts of the east, with a 121 percent climb in Kunar and 60 percent and 41 percent increases in Kapisa and Laghman respectively.
The UNODC report said opium prices had decreased slightly from a year earlier, but were still high, which was a major factor behind the increased growth.
The number of poppy-free provinces, where growth was on less than 100 hectares, remained unchanged at 17, or around half of the country. The report said government eradication efforts had increased by 154 percent.
Some experts warn uncertainty over Afghanistan's future after most foreign forces withdraw by the end of 2014, an Afghan election year, could fuel a surge in opium growth as a means of generating cash to hedge against further instability. (Reuters)
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/cntpo/
Pentagon Wants to Keep Running Its Afghan Drug War From Blackwater’s HQ
- 11.21.12
- 6:30 AM
An Afghan soldier in Helmand Province prepares to burn a marijuana field as part of “Operation Crack Back,” 2011. Photo: Flickr/ISAF
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is supposed to be winding down. Its contractor-led drug war? Not so much.
Inside a compound in Kabul called Camp Integrity, the Pentagon stations a small group of officers to oversee the U.S. military’s various operations to curb the spread of Afghanistan’s cash crops of heroin and marijuana, which help line the Taliban’s pockets. Only Camp Integrity isn’t a U.S. military base at all. It’s the 10-acre Afghanistan headquarters of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater.
Those officers work for an obscure Pentagon agency called the Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO. Quietly, it’s grown into one of the biggest dispensers of cash for private security contractors in the entire U.S. government: One pile of contracts last year from CNTPO was worth more than $3 billion. And it sees a future for itself in Afghanistan over the long haul.
Earlier this month, a U.S. government solicitation sought to hire a security firm to help CNTPO “maintain a basic, operational support cell” in Kabul. Army Lt. Col. James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman, explains that “cell” doesn’t kick in the doors of any Afghan narco-kingpins. It handles the more mundane tasks of overseeing the contracts of the Pentagon’s counter-narcotics programs, from “training and linguists, and [providing] supplies, such as vehicles and equipment.” The solicitation, however, indicates those services aren’t going anywhere: When all the options are exercised, the contract extends through September 29, 2015, over a year past the date when Afghan soldiers and cops are supposed to take over the war. And the “government preferred location” to base CNTPO? Camp Integrity.
The envisioned Pentagon counter-narco-terrorism staff is pretty small: only two to four personnel. But protecting them at Camp Integrity is serious business. The November 6 solicitation calls for a security firm that can “provide a secure armory and weapons maintenance service, including the ability to check-in and check-out weapons and ammunition,” particularly 9 mm pistols and M4 rifles; and to provide “secure armored” transportation to the CNTPO team — primarily “in and around Kabul, but could include some remote locations.”
CNTPO has a longstanding relationship with Blackwater, the infamous security firm that is now known as Academi. In 2009, it gave Blackwater a contract to train Afghan police, and company employees used that contract to requisition guns from the U.S. military for their private use. Although that contract was ultimately taken out of CNTPO’s hands, the office’s relationship with Academi/Blackwater endures. Last year, Academi told Danger Room it has a contract with CNTPO, worth an undisclosed amount, to provide “all-source intelligence analyst support and material procurement” for Afghanistan. An Academi spokeswoman, Kelley Gannon, declined to comment on Academi’s relationship with CNTPO, or whether it’ll bid on the new contract.
But its deal with Academi is just a small slice of CNTPO’s efforts. It’s got a sprawling mandate to fight drugs and terrorism. Last year, CNTPO offered security firms at least $3 billion, excluding the re-up options, for tasks as diverse as training Azerbaijani commandos and “airlift services in the trans-Sahara region of Africa.” Some of its tasks appear to have little connections to either counterterrorismor counternarcotics, like “media analysis and web-site development consultation to officials of the Government of Pakistan.”
All that points to an enduring role for the military going after drugs and drug money in Afghanistan. It’s certainly an enduring problem: On Tuesday, the United Nations found that Afghan poppy cultivationrose nearly 20 percent over the past two years, especially in the southwestern Helmand province. Just last week, the U.S. military took the unusual step of classifying Mullah Naim Barich, the top Taliban operative in Helmand, as a “significant foreign narcotics trafficker or kingpin,’” allowing the U.S. to target companies that do business with him.
But the U.S. mission in Afghanistan isn’t supposed to be about going after drugs anymore. It wasn’t one of the residual missions that Gen. Joseph Dunford, President Obama’s nominee to run the Afghanistan war, described to the Senate last week. But since the Pentagon gives its counter-drug/counter-terrorism operations such a broad mission, a residual force in Afghanistan might find itself going after Barich and his illicit colleagues for years to come, all supported from Academi’s Kabul compound.
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