2010/04/07

Afghan president Hamid Karzai's 'mental stability' in doubt!

In an interview with a US cable television network, Peter Galbraith, the former UN deputy head of mission in Afghanistan described Mr. Karzai as "emotional" and "off balance", and called for President Obama to vastly limit his power until he proved himself a reliable partner to the US. "He's prone to tirades, and could act impulsively, Mr. Galbraith told MSNBC.
In a related story, Alfred W. McCoy reported that, in ways that have escaped most observers, the Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan, from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit. After a year of cautious debate and costly deployments, President Obama finally launched his new Afghan war strategy at 2:40 AM on February 13, 2010, in a remote village called Marja in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province.
As a wave of helicopters descended on Marja's outskirts, spitting up clouds of dust, hundreds of US Marines dashed through fields sprouting opium poppies.
Throughout all the shooting and shouting, American commanders seemed strangely unaware that Marja might qualify as our world's heroin capital, with hundreds of laboratories, regularly processing the local poppy crop into high-grade heroin. After all, the surrounding fields produce at least 40% of the world's illicit opium supply, and much of this harvest is traded in Marja.
For the rest of this important story, please click on
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/146270

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