Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 4,000% since the start of the US/UK/Others occupation. 4,000%. Really. For the first time, this year production of processed opium exceeded 7,500 tons. This industrial manufacture would be impossible without the active participation both of the puppet government we installed, and the command structures of our intelligence services. The Karzai and Dostum families, alongside other of our clients, have become terribly wealthy. Secret funds of intelligence services have swelled.
Opium production amounts to a staggering 60% of Afghanistan’s GDP. Yet we have that pompous fool Jon Simpson on the BBC opining what a great success our occupation was, how Afghanistan is transformed.
The UK spent 37 billion pounds of money we do not have on the occupation of Afghanistan, when our health service is creaking and hungry children are reliant on foodbanks. That 37 billion is a drastic underestimate – it is based on “marginal costing”, the extra cost of operating the troops and equipment in Afghanistan compared to the cost of keeping them on Salisbury Plain. The fact you would not need this massive offensive army and all that equipment, were you not conducting worldwide simultaneous invasions, is not taken into account at all. The true cost of the Afghan occupation is many times higher than 37 billion.
Bear that in mind when you see Cameron posturing about a routine EU subscription cost of 1.7 billion. There are unlimited funds for attacking and occupying Johnny Foreigner, but money spent on co-operation with other nations is an absurd waste. A view to be reinforced by increasing racist rhetoric about being “swamped” by the Eastern Europeans who are now adding so much to our economy and our culture.
There is an irony here because one of the major reasons for the EU contribution recalculation was the UK government’s decision to include, for the first time, an estimate for illegal trade – in drugs and prostitution – in UK GDP figures, thus producing a spurious blip in economic growth. Prostitution alone was estimated at 6.5 billion pounds, which makes it one of our major industries, while the drugs figure was still higher and represented a direct contribution to UK GDP from the result of our Afghan occupation.
So it was all worthwhile after all! Those soldiers did not die in vain! When you add to that, the fact that the prostitution figure itself is boosted by the many unfortunates, mostly women, who enter the trade to fund a heroin habit, you have a perfect circle of serendipity.
Who can possibly claim that UK policy is unplanned and immoral?
Peak Empire, Take Two
Based on the lessons of history, all empires collapse eventually; thus, the probability that the US empire will collapse can be set at 100% with a great deal of confidence. The question is, When? (Everyone keeps asking that annoying question.)
Of course, all you have to do is leave the US, go some place that isn’t plugged into the US economy in non-optional ways, and you won’t have to worry about this question too much. Some people have made guesses but, as far as I can tell, no one has come up with viable methodology for calculating the date. In order to provide a remedy for this serious shortcoming in collapse theory, I once tried to outline a method for figuring it out in an article titled “Peak Empire,” which was based on Joseph Tainter’s theory of diminishing returns on complexity—or diminishing returns on empire. It’s a perfect problem for differential calculus, and all those microeconomics students who are busy calculating marginal cost vs. marginal revenue, so that they can look for work in the soon-to-be-defunct shale gas industry, might take it up, to put their math talents to better use. In the meantime, here is an update, and a revised estimate.
US Empire of Bases
Just to review, as the brilliant analyst Chalmers Johnson explained, the US is an “empire of bases,” not an empire of colonies. It is not considered politically correct to annex other countries anymore. Witness the reaction to Russia taking back Crimea, even though its population has a right to self-determination, and voted 98% in favor of the idea. But, had things turned out differently, putting a NATO base in Crimea would have been just fine. Still, there are quite a few US “territories” (read “colonies”) listed in the Pentagon Base Structure report, including American Samoa, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Wake Islands. We should probably include Hawaii, since in 1993 the US Congress “apologized” to Hawaii for kidnapping the Queen and illegally annexing the territory. They are not giving it back, mind you, but they don’t mind saying we’re sorry, because they stole it fair and square. The same could be said for Texas, California—the whole bloody continent for that matter. But they don’t do that sort of thing any more—not too much. Sure, the US stole Kosovo from Serbia just to set up a huge NATO base there, but in general there has been a shift to controlling other countries through economic institutions—like the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank. There has also been plenty of political subterfuge, assassinations and coups d’états, as explained by John Perkins in Confessions of an Economics Hit Man, or in Michael Hudson’s work. William Blum writes: “Since the end of the Second World War, the United States of America has…
1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of which were democratically elected.
2. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
3. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
4. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
5. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.”
Continued here: http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/peak-empire-take-two_96.html
@ Craig
No drug taking = no drug trade.
The Deep State and the Bias of Official History
How do Wall Street, oil companies and the shadow government agencies like the CIA and NSA really shape the global political order?
That’s the question author Peter Dale Scott examines in his forthcoming book “The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on U.S. Democracy,” due out on Nov. 12. Scott, a professor emeritus of English at Berkeley and former Canadian diplomat, is considered the father of “deep politics”—the study of hidden permanent institutions and interests whose influence on the political realm transcends the elected.
In the “American Deep State,” Scott takes a compelling look at the facts lurking behind the official histories of events to uncover the real dynamics in play. In this exclusive excerpt—the first of several we will feature on WhoWhatWhy—he looks at the revolving door between Wall Street and the CIA, and what that demonstrates about where power truly resides.
– See more at: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/10/26/the-deep-state-and-the-bias-of-official-history-2/#sthash.BO6XNSaJ.dpuf
The first soldier killed.
Note his son is an army cadet.
Widow remembers fallen soldier and husband who was first casualty of Afghanistan war
Oct 28, 2014
Lance Corporal Darren George became the first casualty of the Afghanistan war after he was accidentally shot by a colleague on patrol in April 2002
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/widow-remembers-fallen-soldier-husband-8007590
“No need to repeat the drivel from Crawfish Charles, the obsequious remote warrior with blood on his hands”
__________________
How d’you work that one out, Ben?
And if by “remote warrior” you mean someone who uses internet blogs then you qualify as well, don’t you?
All the more so as you appear reluctant even to sign any petitions or co-sign the letters that Iain Orr proposes.
Glenn_uk
“@Charles Crawford: Did you really mean to “out” yourself as Habbabkuk quite so obviously?”
_________________
Why on earth do you say that, Glenn?
I just took a leaf out of the book of numerous other regular correspondents* on here and cut-and-pasted something I thought might be of interest. After all, we get reams of stuff from voltairenet, “globalresearch.org” and various other blogs and websites, don’t we.
(* I don’t mean you, obviously.)
Is there a problem with that?
@TonyM (again)
certain smartphones have been covertly forwarding the fingerprint impressions left behind on their touchscreens
OK, I found the Mazurczyk/Caviglione arXiv paper that you were referring to, the paper definitely is scary enough to suggest the recent German practice of “all phones inside this biscuit-tin for the duration of the meeting” is a very reasonable stance. The paper, from August 2014 is titled “Steganography in Modern Smartphones and Mitigation Techniques”
It is following on from how NSA/CryptoAG hid the private-key of MANY governments in the training-preamble-stream of their shiny new CryptoAG encryption terminals’ transmitted ciphertext. There’s no reason to suppose, in the current analytical climate, that many interesting things aren’t also secretly leaked. However not yet biometrics! And the humble tin of biscuits does a reasonable job, if I was SNP, which I’m not, I’d be buying a lot of tins of Walkers Shortbread!
“mostly women, who enter the trade to fund a heroin habit”
That kind of speculation might get you a slot as guest-conspiracy-theorist on Russia Today but, to most of us in the real world, it is referred to as ‘horse-shit’.
” This industrial manufacture would be impossible without the active participation both of the puppet government we installed, and the command structures of our intelligence services. The Karzai and Dostum families, alongside other of our clients, have become terribly wealthy. Secret funds of intelligence services have swelled.”
Indeed NATO has done well to protect and increase the trade in opiates, and it is most likely that Richard Conroy was killed to protect this racket, a death you so aptly write about in your book ‘Murder in Samarkand’
The figures of refined heroin from opium have increased because the allies allowed chemical precursors to pass the border and fuel Dostums Labs, it is an accusation the British/all NATO Government’s can not deny.
Someone will make the comparative math and tell us what the increase in opium production meant in increased profits for western intelligence, a CIA method of creating black op funds that has been apparent since the Vietnam war.
Thing is, nobody today cares about such blatant misuse and the misery caused, like they do not care about off shoring, public tax fraud/’mistakes’ as they are also know as, mistakes were lessons are never learned, surely a lesson for future generations to pick up, two faced values and hypocritical public announcements by the bucket load.
What stuck in my gullet this morning was to hear a veteran accusing the Government of being able to trace the health of cows, eggs and sheep, but we are unable to look after and care for our returning soldiers as they deserve it.
reform of both houses anyone? well not anyone…..
“What stuck in my gullet this morning was to hear a veteran accusing the Government of being able to trace the health of cows, eggs and sheep, but we are unable to look after and care for our returning soldiers as they deserve it.”
The government never was much good at looking after old soldiers. People like the British Legion do that.
They sell poppies as well.
Whilst on the subject of soldiers dying in vain/Billions of £ waste & steganography in modern communications, according to http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1845875/mi5-vets-tetra-radio-security the UK Covert Police & Security Service were planning to use Tetra/Airwave radios nearly 15 years ago.
I would hope by now that they would have harder to detect spread-spectrum personal role radios as this next article shows that a thousand pound device called “Blue-Eye” can inform you when there is a surveillance team within half-a-mile of your meeting!
http://www.driving.co.uk/news/on-the-road-with-the-police-car-detecting-target-blu-eye-device/
Knowing that the multi-billion pound Tetra/Airwave use can be detected by a simple receiver, will no doubt lead to geeks inventing a £20 “spook detector” just in time for Hallowe’en!
The multi-billion pound Tetra/Airwave therefore now bears comparison to the multi-billion pound military BOWMAN radio system, where the reverse acronym was coined “Better Off With Map And Nokia” and although Airwave cost billions, due to this and other ‘failures’ I expect it will now be scrapped in favour of ‘Map’ & ‘Nokia’ 4G/LTE data transmission from a Police/Spook Smartphone, which brings us back to the arXiv paper on Smartphone Steganography. YCNMIU
Physics is fun, More work for CESG! (http://www.cesg.gov.uk Independently evaluates and certifies the level of trust that may be placed in IT security features)
joined at the hip…
UN Rejects Cuba Embargo 188-2
Three nations (Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands) abstained, while only the US and Israel voted against the non-binding resolution…
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=106970
Operation Telic – By 11 March 2007, more than 2,670 soldiers had returned from Iraq suffering from some form of mental illness, including PTSD. (Telegraph)
Who killed captain Richard Holloway in Afghanistan? Now the war is over his real killers can be named.
The UK government, army generals and most of the media said that while ‘mistakes’ had been made, the war had been ‘worthwhile’ and the ‘sacrifice’ of the 453 British soldiers killed had made Afghanistan more secure and Britain safer from terrorist attacks on its streets.
The truth is, the war was an unmitigated disaster that brought nothing but death and destruction to Afghanistan and its people, destabilised the region and increased the likelihood of terrorist outrages in Britain.
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/time-to-own-up-who-really-killed-uk-army-captain-richard-holloway-in-afghanistan
First the Mail now the Express… From people who normally denigrate the MSM and everything it prints this is a rare treat.
From Mark’s link:- ” most recently by Michael Adebolajo, who killed the Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on the streets of London in May ”
So can we assume that you’ve turned your back on Chris Spivey and all his works and accept that this wasn’t some ludicrous “false flag” event after all?
We are making progress!
“What is this “increasingly racist rhetoric about being “swamped” by the Eastern Europeans”?
(Canspeccy)
Someone (Lord Green?) last week said we are being swamped by Eastern Europeans. Nothing to see. Move on. But not to Wisbech, Cambs, unless you speak Polish.
According to the many hysterical media reports on this rather obvious observation, it was the association with ‘swamp’ that provoked the outrage of all right-thinking persons who are, presumably, prepared to put down their Guardians and lift beets or process peas for less than the national minimum wage. If Lord Green (?) had said that we were privileged to welcome large numbers of Eastern Europeans, it would have been perfectly PC, and not an eyebrow need have been raised. With luck, the question, “Who’s this ‘we’, then?” would not have been asked.
have you noticed how there is now a daily quote of irrelevant mentions of various holocaustianity-related items?
(David Holden)
YES. There’s been a noticeable upturn in not just holocaust, but Jewish-issue-specific material on R4 lately. Unmatched by anything of Muslim, Hindu, or indeed Christian interest.
We’re getting a lot of Kindertransport stuff, in particular.
But nothing on Israel’s pushing ahead with its latest land theft:
http://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/411671–turkey-condemns-israels-land-grab
The government never was much good at looking after old soldiers. People like the British Legion do that.
They sell poppies as well.
Fact. Buy one now.
Well said Mike D on Medialens.
‘The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial
Posted by MikeD on October 28, 2014, 12:53 pm
The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial
Four million people will flock to see the 888,246 ceramic poppies deposited in the Tower’s moat to mark Remembrance Day. It’s disturbing that, 100 years on, we can only mark this terrible war as a nationalistic tragedy.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day
…It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims? The crowds come to remember – but we should not be remembering only our own. It’s the inward-looking mood that lets Ukip thrive…
What a lie. The first world war was not noble. War is not noble. A meaningful mass memorial to this horror would not be dignified or pretty. It would be gory, vile and terrible to see. The moat of the Tower should be filled with barbed wire and bones. That would mean something.’
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1414500805.html
serendipitous?
Going up in the world: New Iraq PM was former BBC lift engineer
Former BBC Arabic journalist Hamid Alkifaey has recalled meeting the future prime minister during his time as a lift engineer.
“He used to come to oversee the work and see how it progresses,” Hamid Alkifaey told BBC World Service’s The Fifth Floor today.
Mr Alkifaey said he saw him “quite often” possibly “once or twice a month”.
“But I paid attention because I know him, have known him for 27 years, but others didn’t pay attention because they didn’t know him,” he said. He noted that Mr Abadi had been a leading figure of the Iraqi community in London.
Despite access, Mr Abadi never called into the BBC Arabic section, Mr Alkifaey said.
Mr Alkifaey told BBC Radio that he once asked Mr Abadi “How come you have been here all these years ( the first time I saw him at Bush House was 1999 and he said he has been there for 20 years), I said how come you haven’t come to the 4th floor to the Arabic service?”.
Mr Abadi had replied, according to Mr Alkifaey said “ I am here to do a different job I never went to the Arabic service because I don’t want to mix the two together. I am here as a professional doing a different job.”….
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/going-up-in-the-world-new-iraq-pm-was-former-bbc-lift-engineer-1.1898240
Lift man
In 1981 Dr. Al-Abadi joined LDP Engineering Ltd as a development engineer and carried out research on rope-less transportation systems as well as “development, design and installation work for a major lift modernisation, design and build contract”, according to his CV. This looks like the start of the BBC project at Bush – it had been in gestation for some years, as it required Foreign Office approval for the capital spend, and these things never moved fast…
By 1993 he’d set up his own company, Relevet Limited, which operated out of offices set aside by World Service in the North West wing of Bush….
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/lift-man.html
And the recently deceased president of Zambia was once a British Rail porter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zambia/9030905/Humiliating-work-as-Victoria-station-porter-helped-Michael-Sata-become-Zambias-president.html
Zambian President Michael Sata dies in London
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29813612
Very much off topic!
Agent Cameron’s celebrity hairdresser has given him a ‘comb over ‘to hide the effect of early male pattern baldness. Visible on the overhead camera shots at PMQs*. Such a shame that his crowning glory is disappearing before our eyes.
And the prize for giving Cameron the chop goes to… Prime Minister’s hairdresser given an MBE in the New Year’s honours list
Lino Carbosiero has been recognised for services to hairdressing
Believed to be responsible for Cameron’s decision to change his parting
Also worked on locks of Kylie Minogue, Paul McCartney and Dustin Hoffman
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534754/The-man-Cameron-chop-Prime-Ministers-hairdresser-given-MBE-New-Years-honours-list.html
*Immigration, immigration, immigration.
“…. the UK government’s decision to include, for the first time, an estimate for illegal trade – in drugs and prostitution – in UK GDP figures, thus producing a spurious blip in economic growth.”
…and have I received any thanks from them?
Kempe 28 Oct, 2014 – 8:00 pm
You suggest Craig has been selective in his choice of statistics but you accept his basic assertion that heroin production has increased manyfold during the US/UK/Others occupation. Doesn’t this make you a conspiracy theorist?
Months ago, one of my favorite journos Marcy Wheeler left the Intercept in the dust. Now Omidyar has announced another of my favs, Matt Taibbi is gone. They have produced disappointing stories for the promises unkept.
Ray Jinghar-Don
I fear that your confusion is caused by your inability to parse a sentence. It means that:
a) the majority of sex workers are women
b) some of them enter sex work to pay for a drug habit
Both are completely uncontentious, I believe.
No! Kempe – do not misquote me – I was refering to Robin Beste’s sub-piece about Captain Holloway in Afghanistan ‘and you know it. Chris Spivey had the insight and acumen to develop another angle.
I had information from other sources including as a wrote here, an IS communication link set-up on the morning of 22 May 2013.
It seems Greenwich council were given the ‘nod’ by the cabal of establishment terrorists:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/backlash-over-extraordinary-move-not-to-include-lee-rigbys-name-on-memorial-9820143.html
The Home Office has defended its decision to end British support for search-and-rescue operations for migrants in danger of drowning in the Mediterranean, after criticism that it marked an ethical nadir for Britain.
A statement said the decision agreed by the home secretary, Theresa May, with other European interior ministers this month had been taken because the rescue operations, which had so far saved the lives of more than 150,000 migrants, were acting as a “pull factor” for illegal migration.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/home-office-defends-uk-migrant-pull-factor
Anti-immigrants should be pleased. How many can claim indigenous origin? Aren’t most folks former immigrants?
“I got mine. Screw you.”
Node this article includes a graph of poppy production by year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22150482
Would you not agree that any comparisons using 2001 as a baseline are going to be misleading? It was a very atypical year and the Taliban would have allowed production to ramp up again even had the invasion not taken place. They were and still are making too much money not to. Using 2000 as a reference production hasn’t doubled, let alone increased “manyfold” and I can’t see how this is evidence of collusion by the Afghan government or our intelligence services. I thought this blog had previously agreed that neither have much influence in the country beyond Kabul.
“and the Taliban would have allowed production to ramp up again even had the invasion not taken place.”
Really, that is absolutely fascinating. And what would the consequences for the political future of England have been had the Normans lost the Battle of Hastings? Really, you are an arse. And if you believe it is the Taliban who are the major beneficiaries of the poppy trade, you are such an arse as to be not worth considering.
” I was refering to Robin Beste’s sub-piece about Captain Holloway in Afghanistan ”
Beste’s claim that Rigby was murdered in revenge for the occupation is a much key to his argument against the war as Holloway’s death.