Geopolitics, Profit, and Poppies: How the CIA Turned Afghanistan into a Failed Narco-State

The war in Afghanistan has looked a lot like the war on drugs in Latin America and previous colonial campaigns in Asia, with a rapid militarization of the area and the empowerment of pliant local elites.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
CIA Afghanistan Drug trade Feature photo

AFGHANISTAN -- The COVID-19 pandemic has been a death knell to so many industries in Afghanistan. Charities and aid agencies have even warned that the economic dislocation could spark widespread famine. But one sector is still booming: the illicit opium trade. Last year saw Afghan opium poppy cultivation grow by over a third while counter-narcotics

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WATCH: Brave Congressman Explains How US Keeps Afghan Heroin Trade Alive at Your Expense

Congressman Thomas Massie blows the lid off the US subsidized opium trade and taxpayer funds flowing into the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Matt Agorist
By Matt Agorist

This week, President Donald Trump, just like his predecessor Obama, promised to continue the utterly corrupt failure of a brutal occupation that is Afghanistan—despite running on a campaign to end it. For decades, the United States has been subsidizing—to the tune of billions of US tax dollars—failed projects, infrastructure, military, police, and

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Amid Opioid Crisis, Trump Sends Troops To Guard Poppies in Afghanstan

There is no way to uncouple the massive surge in Afghan’s opium production from the burgeoning crisis of opioid use in the United States. In banishing all thought of an Afghan “endgame,” has Trump just made our “national emergency” of opioid abuse a permanent one?

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
MARJAH, Helmand province, Afghanistan - Corporal Mark Hickok, a 23-year-old combat engineer from North Olmstead, Ohio, patrols through a poppy field during a clearing mission April 9. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. John M. McCall)

With last Friday’s departure of his chief strategist Steve Bannon – one of the few members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle opposed to American “empire building” -- many speculated it was only a matter of time before the Trump administration took an even more hawkish turn. Less than two days later, Secretary of Defense James Mattis

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Tennessee Counties Sue Opioid Makers Using Local “Crack Tax” Law

That “crack tax” – otherwise known as the drug dealer liability statute – was passed in 2005 to allow for civil action against street drug dealers, many of whom were peddling crack.

ZeroHedge.com
By ZeroHedge.com
Drugs from a Pharmacy Health Shop (Photo via epSos .de/flickr)

The US opioid epidemic has continued to worsen in 2017 as super-powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil taint the nation’s heroin supply. While the FBI’s final tally has yet to arrive, preliminary data suggest that overdose deaths last year eclipsed the 50,000 recorded nationally in 2015 – the most ever. And the body count is

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War On Drugs Killed More People In 2016 Than US Troops Killed In Vietnam War

For the first time in US history, more Americans have died of drug overdoses in a single year than all those killed in the Vietnam War. The drug war has been exposed as a deadly and violent failure and the federal government shows no signs of backing down.

Jack Burns
By Jack Burns
Los Angeles Police officers assist Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA agents serving a federal warrant to shut down a Marijuana dispensary operating in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles.

For the first time in U.S. History, more Americans died in 2016 of drug overdoses than were killed in the Vietnam War. Let that sink in. Last year’s death toll in the War on Drugs was 59,000 killed, while during the entire Vietnam War, 1955 to 1975, 58,220 American service members’ lives were lost. And, thanks to the immoral and futile police

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Ohio Sues Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Over Role In Opioid Epidemic

Ohio’s Attorney General described the state’s drug crisis as a “fire stoked by greed, fueled by deceit, and tended by a multi-billion dollar industry.”

Kevin Koeninger
By Kevin Koeninger
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine speaks during a news conference at a Kroger store to announce the chain's decision to offer the opioid overdose reversal medicine Naloxone without a prescription, Feb. 12, 2016, in Cincinnati. (AP/John Minchillo)

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Wednesday the filing of a lawsuit against numerous prescription pain medication manufacturers, as part of the Buckeye State’s ongoing effort to fight its opioid addiction epidemic. In a press conference announcing the lawsuit, DeWine described the state’s drug crisis as a “fire stoked by greed, fueled

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