textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/wtcbomb4.xml

<xml><p>WRONG NUMBER FILE NAME: WTCBOMB4.ZIP </p>

<p> [Reproduced from _The Village Voice_, 4/15/93] </p>

<p> THE <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> AND HEROIN FINANCED THE MUJAHEDEEN </p>

<p> By Robert I. Friedman </p>

<p> The World Trade Center bombing is the legacy of the CIA's disastrous policy
of arming the <ent type='GPE'>mujahedeen</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent>. Not only have <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent>
war veterans been implicated in the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history,
but <ent type='GPE'>mujahedeen</ent> warlords also have become the world's biggest heroin
producers, according to experts in the international drug trade. </p>

<p> The CIA's arms shipments and training program for the <ent type='GPE'>mujahedeen</ent> became one
of its most massive covert operations, costing at least $2 billion, far
surpassing U.S. support for the <ent type='NORP'>Nicaraguan</ent> contras. If anything, the battle
for <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent> motivated the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> more than the war against the
Sandinistas. In <ent type='GPE'>Nicaragua</ent>, the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> fought <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> proxies. In <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent>,
the enemy was the <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> army, which invaded <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent> in December 1979. </p>

<p> Support for <ent type='NORP'>Nicaraguan</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent>i "freedom fighters" became the
cornerstone of the so-called Reagan Doctrine - an attempt not just to contain
Communism but to roll it back. While the contras were mostly a collection
of former dictator <ent type='PERSON'>Anastasio Somoza</ent>'s street thugs, in <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent> the
rebels were <ent type='NORP'>Islamic</ent> extremists and narco-terrorists who hated <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> as
much as they despised <ent type='ORG'>the Godless</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Russians</ent>. </p>

<p> Billions of dollars of <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> money, matched by billions from Saudi Arabia (a
quid pro quo for receiving <ent type='ORG'>AWAC</ent> surveillance planes over the adamant
protests of the pro-<ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> lobby), were passed through <ent type='ORG'>the Bank</ent> of Credit
and Commerce International to the <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent> rebels. The bank was also used to
channel funds to the contras. But no matter how much money the <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent>
rebels received it never seemed to be enough. In order to augment their
funds, rebel chieftains began to grow poppies, refine opium into heroin,
and sell the drug in the U.S. and Europe. In 1979, <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent>
exported virtually no heroin to the West. By 1981, the drug lords, many
high-ranking members of Pakistan's political and military establishment,
controlled 60 per cent of America's heroin market. "<ent type='ORG'>Trucks</ent> from the
<ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent> army's <ent type='ORG'>National Logistics Cell</ent> arriving with <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> arms from <ent type='GPE'>Karachi</ent>
often returned loaded with heroin-protected by <ent type='ORG'>ISI</ent> [Pakistan's internal
security service] papers from police search," wrote Alfred McCoy in The
Politics of Heroin (Lawrence Hill, 1991). </p>

<p> Of the seven rebel <ent type='GPE'>mujahedeen</ent> leaders who operated from base-camps in
<ent type='GPE'>Peshawar</ent>, by far the most dominant is Gulbuddin <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent>, who received
more than $1 billion in covert U.S. aid. <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> was an obscure <ent type='NORP'>Islamic</ent>
fanatic before he was tapped by the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>. Today, his forces are nine miles
from <ent type='GPE'>Kabul</ent>, where until recently he was engaged in bloody battles against
the <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent> army - indiscriminately raining tens of thousands of rockets and
artillery shells on the nation's capital. A March 7 <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent>i-brokered
peace accord named <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> Afghan's prime minister-designate. </p>

<p> All through the 1980s, <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> received accolades from the U.S. press,
even though <ent type='ORG'>Asia Watch</ent>, among others, published gory reports about his
human rights abuses. <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> brutally murdered rivals, then had their
corpses ritually mutilated. "He really did dominate the <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent> refugee
camps and was known among the refugees as being willing to retaliate
against anyone who challenged his political authority," McCoy, a professor
of <ent type='NORP'>Southeast Asian</ent> history at <ent type='ORG'>the University</ent> of Wisconsin, told the Voice.
Only after the <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent>s left <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent> in 1989 did <ent type='ORG'>The New York</ent> Times
criticize Hekmatyar's "sinister nature." The Times, however, never
bothered to tell its readers that <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> is also among the world's
biggest heroin dealers, a distinction he has enjoyed for nearly a decade.
A May 1990 front-page article in <ent type='ORG'>The Washington Post</ent> charged that U.S.
officials had ignored <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent>i complaints of heroin trafficking by <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent>
and <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent>i intelligence. Some experts now believe that <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> will
vastly increase Afghanistan's opium harvest when he becomes prime minister.
"There were preliminary reports about six months ago based on interviews
with UN personnel in the region that <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent> by itself could produce
3000 tons of opium," says McCoy. "Now that's nearly equivalent to the
world's supply no matter how you calculate it. It's one little country and
it's going to double the world's supply all by itself." </p>

<p> It's easier - and far more profitable - for the 4 to 5 million <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent>s
returning home from the refugee camps in <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent> to plant poppies than
rebuild their war-shattered economy, says McCoy. Afghanistan's agriculture
was destroyed by the war and it will take a lot of nurturing to revive the
groves of oranges, its principal cash crop before the war. Poppies need
little tending and they will guarantee peasants an almost immediate income.
"Opium is the ideal solution," says McCoy. "They can put it in and in six
months they've got a harvest." But while <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> has inundated the U.S.
and Europe with the potent powder, U.S. officials have remained silent. </p>

<p> Ruined citrus crops, a plague of heroin, and hundreds of thousands of
casualties didn't deter the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> from its holy war against communism in
<ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent>. "On the afternoon of February 15, 1989, the champagne began
flowing at <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> headquarters," wrote Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Tim
Weiner in <ent type='ORG'>Blank</ent> Check, a book about covert operations. "A rare exultation
filled the air. After fifteen years of failure and humiliation, the <ent type='ORG'>Agency</ent>
had won a famous victory. The last <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> troops had left <ent type='GPE'>Afghanistan</ent>. The
Agency's biggest covert action since the height of <ent type='EVENT'>the Vietnam war</ent> had
achieved its goal. The <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> had won its jihad." </p>

<p> The real winners, of course, are <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> and the tens of thousands of
<ent type='NORP'>Islamic</ent> holy warriors -- trained and financed by the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent> -- who are today
locked in a life and death struggle with <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. According to this week's
<ent type='ORG'>New Yorker</ent>, it was <ent type='ORG'>Hekmatyar</ent> who "most likely" introduced Sheikh Omar Abdel
Rahman to the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent>i intelligence officials who were
orchestrating the <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent> war when the sheikh visited <ent type='GPE'>Pakistan</ent> just prior to
moving to <ent type='GPE'>Brooklyn</ent> in May 1990. As the Voice previously reported, the <ent type='ORG'>CIA</ent>
almost certainly facilitated the sheikh's entry into <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States as a
reward for helping the <ent type='GPE'>mujahedeen</ent> - despite his presence on a State
Department terrorism watch list. <ent type='PERSON'>Mahmud Abouhalima</ent>, an <ent type='NORP'>Afghan</ent> war vet and
the sheikh's driver, has been indicted for his alleged involvement in the
World Trade Center bombing. The wreckage and death caused by the blast is
a depressing coda to the end of <ent type='EVENT'>the Cold War</ent>. And thanks to the CIA's
favorite freedom fighters, heroin addiction is again on the rise in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. * </p>

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