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<h2>wtcbomb4</h2>
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<p>WRONG NUMBER FILE NAME: WTCBOMB4.ZIP </p>
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<p> [Reproduced from _The Village Voice_, 4/15/93] </p>
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<p> THE CIA AND HEROIN FINANCED THE MUJAHEDEEN </p>
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<p> By Robert I. Friedman </p>
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<p> The World Trade Center bombing is the legacy of the CIA's disastrous policy
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of arming the mujahedeen in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Not only have Afghan
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war veterans been implicated in the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history,
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but mujahedeen warlords also have become the world's biggest heroin
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producers, according to experts in the international drug trade. </p>
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<p> The CIA's arms shipments and training program for the mujahedeen became one
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of its most massive covert operations, costing at least $2 billion, far
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surpassing U.S. support for the <span class="NORP">Nicaraguan</span> contras. If anything, the battle
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for Afghanistan motivated the CIA more than the war against the
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Sandinistas. In Nicaragua, the CIA fought Soviet proxies. In Afghanistan,
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the enemy was the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. </p>
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<p> Support for <span class="NORP">Nicaraguan</span> and Afghani "freedom fighters" became the
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cornerstone of the so-called Reagan Doctrine - an attempt not just to contain
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Communism but to roll it back. While the contras were mostly a collection
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of former dictator Anastasio Somoza's street thugs, in Afghanistan the
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rebels were Islamic extremists and narco-terrorists who hated America as
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much as they despised the Godless <span class="NORP">Russians</span>. </p>
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<p> Billions of dollars of CIA money, matched by billions from Saudi Arabia (a
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quid pro quo for receiving AWAC surveillance planes over the adamant
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protests of the pro-Israel lobby), were passed through the Bank of Credit
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and Commerce International to the Afghan rebels. The bank was also used to
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channel funds to the contras. But no matter how much money the Afghan
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rebels received it never seemed to be enough. In order to augment their
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funds, rebel chieftains began to grow poppies, refine opium into heroin,
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and sell the drug in the U.S. and Europe. In 1979, Pakistan and Afghanistan
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exported virtually no heroin to the West. By 1981, the drug lords, many
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high-ranking members of Pakistan's political and military establishment,
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controlled 60 per cent of America's heroin market. "Trucks from the
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Pakistan army's National Logistics Cell arriving with CIA arms from Karachi
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often returned loaded with heroin-protected by ISI [Pakistan's internal
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security service] papers from police search," wrote Alfred McCoy in The
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Politics of Heroin (Lawrence Hill, 1991). </p>
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<p> Of the seven rebel mujahedeen leaders who operated from base-camps in
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Peshawar, by far the most dominant is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who received
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more than $1 billion in covert U.S. aid. Hekmatyar was an obscure Islamic
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fanatic before he was tapped by the CIA. Today, his forces are nine miles
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from Kabul, where until recently he was engaged in bloody battles against
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the Afghan army - indiscriminately raining tens of thousands of rockets and
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artillery shells on the nation's capital. A March 7 Pakistani-brokered
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peace accord named Hekmatyar Afghan's prime minister-designate. </p>
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<p> All through the 1980s, Hekmatyar received accolades from the U.S. press,
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even though Asia Watch, among others, published gory reports about his
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human rights abuses. Hekmatyar brutally murdered rivals, then had their
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corpses ritually mutilated. "He really did dominate the Afghan refugee
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camps and was known among the refugees as being willing to retaliate
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against anyone who challenged his political authority," McCoy, a professor
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of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin, told the Voice.
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Only after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 did The New York Times
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criticize Hekmatyar's "sinister nature." The Times, however, never
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bothered to tell its readers that Hekmatyar is also among the world's
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biggest heroin dealers, a distinction he has enjoyed for nearly a decade.
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A May 1990 front-page article in The Washington Post charged that U.S.
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officials had ignored Afghani complaints of heroin trafficking by Hekmatyar
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and Pakistani intelligence. Some experts now believe that Hekmatyar will
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vastly increase Afghanistan's opium harvest when he becomes prime minister.
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"There were preliminary reports about six months ago based on interviews
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with UN personnel in the region that Afghanistan by itself could produce
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3000 tons of opium," says McCoy. "Now that's nearly equivalent to the
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world's supply no matter how you calculate it. It's one little country and
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it's going to double the world's supply all by itself." </p>
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<p> It's easier - and far more profitable - for the 4 to 5 million Afghans
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returning home from the refugee camps in Pakistan to plant poppies than
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rebuild their war-shattered economy, says McCoy. Afghanistan's agriculture
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was destroyed by the war and it will take a lot of nurturing to revive the
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groves of oranges, its principal cash crop before the war. Poppies need
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little tending and they will guarantee peasants an almost immediate income.
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"Opium is the ideal solution," says McCoy. "They can put it in and in six
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months they've got a harvest." But while Hekmatyar has inundated the U.S.
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and Europe with the potent powder, U.S. officials have remained silent. </p>
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<p> Ruined citrus crops, a plague of heroin, and hundreds of thousands of
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casualties didn't deter the CIA from its holy war against communism in
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Afghanistan. "On the afternoon of February 15, 1989, the champagne began
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flowing at CIA headquarters," wrote Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Tim
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Weiner in Blank Check, a book about covert operations. "A rare exultation
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filled the air. After fifteen years of failure and humiliation, the Agency
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had won a famous victory. The last Soviet troops had left Afghanistan. The
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Agency's biggest covert action since the height of the Vietnam war had
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achieved its goal. The CIA had won its jihad." </p>
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<p> The real winners, of course, are Hekmatyar and the tens of thousands of
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Islamic holy warriors -- trained and financed by the CIA -- who are today
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locked in a life and death struggle with America. According to this week's
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New Yorker, it was Hekmatyar who "most likely" introduced Sheikh Omar Abdel
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Rahman to the American and Pakistani intelligence officials who were
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orchestrating the Afghan war when the sheikh visited Pakistan just prior to
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moving to Brooklyn in May 1990. As the Voice previously reported, the CIA
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almost certainly facilitated the sheikh's entry into the United States as a
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reward for helping the mujahedeen - despite his presence on a State
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Department terrorism watch list. Mahmud Abouhalima, an Afghan war vet and
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the sheikh's driver, has been indicted for his alleged involvement in the
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World Trade Center bombing. The wreckage and death caused by the blast is
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a depressing coda to the end of the Cold War. And thanks to the CIA's
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favorite freedom fighters, heroin addiction is again on the rise in
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America. * </p>
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<p> WRONG NUMBER FILE NAME: WTCBOMB4.TXT </p>
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