Afghanistan: Mainstream Media Awakes 125


This morning Sam Kiley, Sky News’ security correspondent, stated bluntly that the large bulk of Afghan heroin and opium production is controlled by members of the Karzai government.

That is a simple truth, and I have been publishing it repeatedly on this blog for the last six years, but it runs absolutely contrary to what has been an extraordinary and monolithic mainstream media narrative. The insistence for ten years by an almost unanimous mainstream media that it is the Taliban who contol the drugs trade has been perhaps the most remarkable example of a massive organised lie in modern media history. The question of how a false narrative like that becomes an accepted mainstream “truth” is a key element in control of the state by a rapacious elite using the brainwashing tcapabilities of modern mass communication.

The truly remarkable thing is the truth has somehow broken through. Then today in Parliament David Winnick, opposition defence spokesman, actually stated directly tthat people know longer believe that the presence of our troops in Afghanistan somehow protects us from terrorism, but rather might tend to inspire hatred of the UK.

Again, a blindingly obvious truth that I have been proclaiming for a decade. But absolutely not admissible as an argument on moanstream media in that period, and a truth whose denial was the dedicated work of Winnick’s party when it was in government.

The counter-productive and ruinously expensive nature of the Afghan War is something a high proportion of people fully understood even when they were never reinforced in their understanding by seeing that view reflected in “mainstream media”. Tens of thousands of children have died while arms suppliers and mercenary commanders got very rich. The last nine to be slaughtered in their beds have helped jolt people in the media and politics to talk some semblance of sense at last.

Urinating on dead Afghans, burning Korans and a nighttime killing spree are not the problem; they are symptoms of the problem. A vicious occupation by religious antagonists who repeatedly and continually launch massive violence on civilians, with the intent of imposing by force elements of an alien culture while establishing a massively corrupt and despised puppet government, is not a viable long term project. There is no way to undo the past. The best thing to do now is leave.


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125 thoughts on “Afghanistan: Mainstream Media Awakes

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  • Jay

    Regarding our current global situation with our (more than Fascist) global leaders. Do we see any viable solution to halt the on going crisis.

    Should we not put animal rights and destruction of nature first
    What can we do as an individual?

    Stop drinking / smoking / change our own lifestyles for the better.

    ” peri stroika ” although that will be hard with only 35% capable of abstract thought.

    Quote “love thy neighbour more than one self”
    AH

  • anon

    BlackVeil, DownWithThisSortOfThing is a conspiracy theorist and an adept hand at self-contradiction. He says (in his usual patronising style) “It is you, dear reader, who is living in a totalitarian fascist state” while seemingly unaware that if it were the case we would not be reading his drivel and assertions. “Almost everything you believe (as opposed to ‘know’) about your country is an artificial construct” ROFL.

  • daniel

    Eric Pickles on Question Time made the point that we needed to be in Afghanistan to prevent terrorists from committing atrocities on our streets. His facial expression said it all. He didn’t believe a word of the rubbish he was saying. Not only that, the rest of the panel didn’t believe it, Dimbleby didn’t believe it and the studio audience certainly didn’t believe it. Are we all seriously expected to believe Pashtun tribespeople are a threat to the people on the streets of the UK? Their propaganda won’t wash anymore.

  • nevermind

    Those who have allowed Dostum and walid karzai to import pre cursor chemicals to make heroin, are also the ones who know the killers of RICHARD CONROY. NATO has effectively turned a bling eye, or in the case of the CIA, actively promoted the export of heroin, not opium, to a global clientle they helped create since Vietnam.
    No doubt some of these monies, just as the secret finance system screwing Russian oligarchs, is being used for arming those we want to go to war against us and thwe war on terror is just a ruse to get control over vital resources and strategic positions, a last struggle for supremacy.
    John Boetcher is right, we have to utilise the trade for our hospitals and at the same time create a real rapport with those who govern Afghanistan, the same people.
    Tajiks are already shooting Pashtuns and I expect an allmighty civil war after withdrawal, the Eickenberry rules were never applied and what was applied is not working. I also expect the US to ‘negotiate’bases near Irans border, arguably having to fight to fronts in future, as they seem unable to control their rednecks when hooched up.

    Finally where is Adam Werritty, we thought you would have managed to find him in a Berlin Kreuzberg Turkish bath,…
    Not that we would know what to do with him, apat from giving him a gong of sorts, the man is untouchable.
    had to laugh about the first comment here from Churtazp, they are all arseholes, the three main party shooting game is a racket, they are all in the hands of others, bar a very few uncorruptables. You only have to look at young Chloe to see how they create their own offspring in the same vain.

    Mary, just as the rich Italians buying property by the millions in London, and the greeks banking large sums in Switzerland and here, the irish will line up in front of Osborne for a little absolution of their fiscal contributions.

    I do not think it possible to find a political electoral soultion to this unsustainable system, I’m too old to try again
    after a lifetime of frustrations, wasted efforts with no results. There is no will left in people to want any change, especially not the young one’s. By the gods, I’ve tried.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    Anon 13 Mar, 2012 – 8:13 am.
    .
    Allow me to deconstruct that post for the benefit of others.
    .
    BlackVeil, DownWithThisSortOfThing is a conspiracy theorist and an adept hand at self-contradiction.
    .
    ‘And if you agree with him then so are you’. Anon forget to add the word ‘paranoid’ but that is sufficiently implied these days with the mere words ‘conspiracy theorist’.
    .
    He says (in his usual patronising style) “It is you, dear reader, who is living in a totalitarian fascist state”
    .
    Anon should go and read a dictionary. Just because we don’t have the same guy in the top job for decades at a time means nothing.
    .
    while seemingly unaware that if it were the case we would not be reading his drivel and assertions.
    .
    And, if it were the case, Anon would not be bothered one little bit about my ‘drivel and assertions’ let alone take time to respond in defence of the status quo.
    .
    In fact there would be a wide range of points of view on display in the media and each would garner support based on its approximation to perceived reality. The prevailing *received reality* is simply not believed. Daniel’s post above is a prime example of this but because there are no competing views in public discourse we see dim-witted acceptance of utter nonsense.
    .
    “Almost everything you believe (as opposed to ‘know’) about your country is an artificial construct” ROFL.
    .
    Please don’t read the rest if you are not Anon. Thank you. 😉
    .
    .
    Anon, I now address you directly (and patronisingly)…
    .
    One day, when you are intellectually mature, curiosity may replace those dismissive sneers. My guess is that you will be an old man/woman by then, one of those bitter old bastards/bitches who only worked things out late in life and when it was too late to make a difference to your own life or your loved ones lives.
    .
    I can point you to many many idioms that are factually wrong and yet are generally accepted by the population, even those that claim to be highly educated and well informed.
    .
    Here’s a couple to get you started, “Britain beat Germany in WW1 and WW2” and “The British parliament banned slavery in 1807”.
    .
    And finally, have you seen this yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av2e

  • mike

    BBC Radio 2 news this morning at 8.30am: “Palestinians and Israel reach agreement on ending recent unrest. Hundreds of rockets fired into Israel.”
    No mention of the 25 palestinians killed by Israel in the “recent unrest”!! Not a word. The Beeb’s bias is becoming very obvious; they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
    Looks like Israel are gearing up for more R&R in Gaza. They can’t touch Iran, so a bit of displacement activity will have to do.

  • Komodo

    Gotta love those hundreds of rockets, Mike. And that 100-1 retaliation ratio conscientiously followed by the Israelis since 1949. It’s getting a bit difficult for them in PR terms, though, as their new whizzo US/Israeli antimissile system got 80% of the rockets (allegedly) and the population of southern Israel was mostly in its bunkers at the time. A luxury denied to the Gazans, due to the embargo on construction materials. In case they build themselves bunkers.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    @Mike 13 Mar, 2012 – 9:58 am. Evan Davies did ask about the number of civilian deaths in Gaza but this seemed to be taken as a direct challenge by the guest to say the word ‘terrorist’ as many times as possible.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    Evan Davies was of course on R4 not R2. Mike, try re-tuning your radio for a (slightly) less stressful morning . 😀

  • Komodo

    My main criticism of both Gaza and Afghanistan is this.
    The policies DON’T BLOODY WORK. And they could have been predicted not to if any rational thought had been devoted to either issue (as it was by those not in a position to influence policy). They are now self-perpetuating disaster zones.

  • Passerby

    Mike, Komodo,
    The zioBBC is also economical with the actualities, the grads are gradually landing closer to TelAviv. Hence the operation Iron Dome, that complements the paranoid psychotic supremacists Cement Wall, and the aggressive war on all their neighbors.
    ,
    There are clips of the scared and howling “Master Race” who soil their pants at the sound of the “anti rocket rockets” getting fired at the grads that are getting closer to TelAviv.
    ,
    Is there anyone left other than the “Master Race” and their well paid stooges, and public relations personnel who actually believe the bullshit about the Victim Isreal?
    ,
    ,
    ,
    ,
    ,
    DownWithThisSortOfThing,
    while seemingly unaware that if it were the case we would not be reading his drivel and assertions.
    ,
    What kind of a controversial, way too insurgent, far too subversive comments have been published on this thread?
    ,
    For comparison of standards even Saudi serfs are more outspoken than most of the commenters around here. Duchyouluv the little dig at “freedom of expression”?

  • Craig W

    I always thought that the one good thing the Taliban did – being as they are religious fundamentalists opposed to that sort of thing – was destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan once they won power. Something that nobody else had ever managed.

    For all their many faults the Taliban are not pushers.

  • Komodo

    Passerby, these are not new thoughts. And the Yanks evidently believe it. Because they want to believe it. They want to believe in the heroic little guy and Superman and John Wayne and Roadrunner beating impossible odds and shooting a lot of guns to achieve some kind of apotheosis. They haven’t quite realised that what they are supporting is purblind Elmer Fudd, wholly obsessed with protecting his carrots against the local wildlife.

  • Mary

    I thought that Evan Davis was more challenging than usual although tentative when interviewing the smooth tongued :t Col Avital Leibovich (she who sat in a studio giving out lies during Cast Lead). Her biography is below.
    .
    And at least a Palestinian, Mustafa Barghouti, was allowed on who spoke good Engliah, although the line was poor.
    .
    We were spared Regev for a change.
    .
    Note the use of the word ‘clashes’. Israel made the first attack and killed the first of 24 Palestinians last Friday.
    ,
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9704000/9704962.stm0719
    .
    Ceasefire agreed following Gaza clashes
    .
    Egypt has mediated a truce between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza, after four days of deadly clashes.
    .
    Mustafa Barghouti, former Palestinian presidential candidate and independent member of the Palestinian parliament, claimed that Israel provoked the attack which killed 27 Palestinians including women and children.
    .
    If Israel respects the ceasefire, he said there will be “complete commitment” from Palestinians to non-violent resistance.
    .
    He went on to say that rockets have never been fired into Israel except as a response to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
    .
    He told the Today programme’s Evan Davis that the vast majority of Palestinians are for “abstaining from any form of military action” and rocket attacks were only in self defence.
    .
    Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich, head of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Foreign Press Branch said “when Palestinians stop firing rockets, Israel will not have to defend itself.”
    .
    She said that “the ongoing terror attacks are continuing” and that 20 Israelis have been wounded in the last few days including an 80-year-old woman and children.
    .
    “We are doing everything we can to defend one million Israelis”, she said.
    .
    Leibovich {http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ewJXKcOUJlIaG&b=7717041&ct=11493953}

  • Mary

    GCHQ staff are at risk of prosecution.
    .
    ‘The lawyers are arguing that “there is also a significant risk that GCHQ officers may be guilty of conduct ancillary to crimes against humanity and/or war crimes, both of which are statutory offenses under the International Criminal Court Act, 2001.”
    .
    According to legal documents, the only individuals who are entitled to immunity from ordinary criminal law regarding armed attacks are those who are considered under international law to be “lawful combatants” who are participating in an “international armed conflict.”’
    .
    http://endthelie.com/2012/03/12/human-rights-lawyers-british-civilians-are-parties-to-murders-carried-out-by-us-drones/#axzz1ovM6zuLp

  • Komodo

    @ Mary: Even the Israelis must have realised by now that Regev is strictly for the Catskill comedy circuit. Surely? Maybe some kind agent will get him a gig at the Festival Fringe?
    Thank you. You’ve been wonderful. And I’ve been Komodo. G’night…

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    “The hell created upon earth.” – Good work Mary – your steadfast reporting is amazing.
    .
    I will screen that video in +16yrs school centres hopefully after putting in English sub-titles – help anyone?
    .
    Nevermind
    .
    All the ‘young ones’ need is awareness and refinement; We realise compassion, feeling and friendship is continually evolving in an uncertain world.

  • godBotherer

    NB would-be god-botherers who may be itching to quiz him on matters Werrity-like, even Gouldish:
    .
    Gus O’Donnell, former UK Cabinet Secretary, who served under 3 UK PMs will speak at LSE on April 26:
    .
    http://bit.ly/yOmiIh

  • Mary

    Each day I become more and more dumbstruck at what is being churned out to us.

    .

    Olympics missile sites considered for Blackheath and Shooters Hill
    Eleven police forces and the military are involved in the security effort for London 2012
    .

    Related Stories
    MPs’ concern over Olympic budget
    Missiles ‘may protect 2012 Games’
    .
    The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering plans to install surface-to-air missiles in Blackheath and Shooters Hill during the Olympic Games.
    .
    The MoD said it had taken military advice to identify sites to base the defence systems to protect the skies over London in the event of an attack.
    .
    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17351164

  • opit

    Komodo
    “My main criticism of both Gaza and Afghanistan is this.
    The policies DON’T BLOODY WORK. And they could have been predicted not to if any rational thought had been devoted to either issue (as it was by those not in a position to influence policy). They are now self-perpetuating disaster zones.”

    Any look at the condition of failed state Somalia which has had its government repeatedly destroyed should tell you the objective is failed states ( in oil producing countries). The partition of Iraq and establishment of a Kurdish state is not even recognized in commentary. And now the partition of Pakistan by separating Balochistan continues the heritage of the partition of India itself and the continued irritant of Indian territory occupied by Pakistan and now China in Kashmir – Jammal

    One should not underrate the importance of a playground for the military to waste resources at a safe remove so a to stimulate the economy of a weapons making state. Nor of historical analysis by forces in action 170 years ago : and of plans to remove organized local outlets for action so corporations can have unfettered rape and exploitation of resources.

    Interestingly, there was a time when media exposure of the lies employed in media by interests using covert military control to further domestic agendas ( by a friend of Alexander Pope named Arbuthnot ) tended to withdraw forces from tribal ‘stans’ ( lands ) working against topography and culture clash to establish economically unsustainable western style ‘nations’.

    a very curious discourse… a treatise of the art of political lying
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arbuthnot
    Note the activity re: regulation of drugs and pharmaceuticals as well.

    This is the Long War.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCA_Armies
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/30/call_in_the_calvary?new
    http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/
    ( I know it’s marked a secret War Game scenario. So go over to the Project for a New American Century and read their mission statement and objectives if you have qualms. Or check http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/index.htm for State’s take.)

    The drug trade is an essential for India’s hospital access to cheap painkillers. The War on Drugs institutionalizes state control of the trade by covert ops.Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and firing of scientific advisers who say the purported danger of drugs is overstated to the degree of being a hoax give colour to domestic effects of international criminal enterprise by ‘lawmakers’.

    Ergo the previously noted http://www.smh.com.au/national/secret-sas-teams-hunt-for-terrorists-20120312-1uwhy.html which you can bet is repeated elsewhere.

    Sibel Edmonds at Boiling Frogs was an FBI translator who became incensed by the duplicity of drug ops and went public.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    The most militarised Olympics since… erm… let me just cast my mind back for a moment……. Mein Gott! Ze wurld iz going vor crazy……. ah yes, I remember now, …since 1936.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    @Mary 13 Mar, 2012 – 2:01 pm
    .
    It’s a bit like being invited round to a friends house for a party. Except the host walks around waving a gun under your nose and is constantly asking if you’re having a good time and isn’t it the best party ever.
    .
    These are people who judge others by their own standards. They wouldn’t think twice about firing rockets at a large group of civilians attending a peaceful sporting event so they assume everyone else will, especially those non-existent terrorists.
    .
    I would like to think that the sight of the British military juxtaposed with the peaceful non-military representatives of so many nations who have had their fellow countrymen sacrificed on the alter of ‘British interests’ might stir up some self-conscious, maybe even introspective, feelings. Instead I fear we are in for a summer fest of….
    .
    BRITAIN IS GREAT
    BRITAIN CAN BE PROUD
    BRITAIN IS GREAT
    (arrest that man)
    BRITAIN CAN BE PROUD
    BRITAIN IS GREAT
    BRITAIN CAN BE PROUD
    BRITAIN IS GREAT
    (there’s another one, get him)
    BRITAIN CAN BE PROUD
    BRITAIN IS GREAT
    BRITAIN CAN BE PROUD

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    On military insider knowledge the surface missile system(PAAMS) has nothing to do with the Olympics. Sir Kim Darroch in his latest intelligence assessment believes Iran will use ICBM’s if attacked in June/July this year.
    .
    Many more missile systems will encircle the capital and I condemn chiefs of staff for using the Olympics as a convenient distraction for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This abhorrent pretense for conflict and this veil of trickery undermines the intelligence of an abstract thinking public. It attempts to deceive and treat the British public as imbeciles and simpletons unaware of neocon ambitions of world dominion and subjugation.

  • Komodo

    It’s just a logical step beyond Servicemen and women hosting Wimbledon…mind you don’t get shrapnel in your strawberries…

  • Harv

    Good article. The banksters control the government and the press along with everything else. To get rid of the problem you have to get rid of the banksters. I hope it can be done before they completely wipe out the world population. Stupid, evil people.

  • Komodo

    En passant:-
    .
    Gilad Atzmon has picked up on one of Craig’s pieces, in which Fox and Werritty were described as “useful idiots”. He dissents:
    .
    Fox et Werritty n’étaient pas des ‘idiots utiles’ – des personnes qui semblent naïvement soutenir une idéologie ou une pensée étrangère mais sont en fait utilisés cyniquement par une puissance étrangère. Ils savaient exactement ce qu’ils faisaient et qui ils aidaient. Fox, qui disait en 2006, «Les ennemis d’Israël sont nos ennemis et c’est une bataille dans laquelle nous resterons rassemblés, car nous perdrons dans la division» est un chaud partisan d’Israël et est membre des Conservative Friends of Israel (Amis Conservateurs d’Israël). Fox était aussi favorable à la guerre illégale contre l’Irak, une guerre que beaucoup ont considéré comme étant simplement une guerre israélienne de plus mais faite par des soldats britanniques et Américains et, en 2003, il avait voté pour l’invasion de l’Irak. Il soutient aussi une action contre l’Iran.
    .
    http://www.alterinfo.net/Gilad-Atzmon-sur-Adam-Werritty-taupe-du-Mossad-a-Londres_a65171.html
    .
    I see the Guardian doesn’t want to touch Atzmon these days. Following “protests”, naturally.

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