The CIA, Opium Trade, and Pakistan — Part 3
The media no longer caters to a passive audience, feeding them information. People choose what they want to consume as per what they want to see, hear and learn. A trove of knowledge is often inside the articles which don’t go viral, the books we don’t read, and documentaries that are never made. One such subject is the rise of opioids in Pakistan and America’s active involvement in the drug trade. Pakistan and her people have long suffered from its effects in terms of social well-being and collective health, the black market and racketeering, which comes as a part of the package of illicit trade, as well as the consequences of the reputation it has brought to the country. “Occult Operations: Bloom of the Black Flower” will dissect several sources and is intended to be a comprehensive series of works on the issue.
The first blog discussed an MOU between Agency Director William Casey and Attorney General William French Smith in 1982, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower” by William Blum, and an overview of regions where the Agency has been involved in the drug trade. The second part of the series discussed 9/11, The Kean’s Commission, and a timeline of events.
This piece is an extension of the pieces I penned earlier. This is not to discuss anything new but to conclude and comment on what I put down in ink earlier.
It is not a secret, there is adequate proof of CIA and US involvement in the Afghan Heroin trade. However, I want to emphasise that the heroin trade in the region is a multi-dimensional story. Everyone: farmers, women of the trade, mules, victims, bondage labour, drug lords, aviation pilots and smugglers on the ground, former CIA and DEA members, etc., were involved. Illicit trades do not come without a human cost, often ignored whilst discussing the geo-political and geo-economic perspectives.
Pakistan went from a favourite trade route for the CIA’s opium trade to a consumer. The impact it has had on Pakistan has been profound: in terms of infrastructure, healthcare and economics, both social and cultural. This is besides the terrorism it funded, and the lives it cost us. Amid peanuts sent as “aid” and being slapped with cries of “do more” and brutal sanctions, the USA and NATO owe Pakistan serious reparations.
Over a year after Kabul was conquered by the Afghan Taliban, I want to suggest a possibility with regard to the War. Remember the headlines which flashed in American newspapers on the Afghan Taliban sitting on vast deposits of natural resources? Did they make you think? If they did not, throw opium into the equation and think now.
What if Washington was at war with itself? Perhaps it was never about Afghan freedom; rather, it was about capitalism. The decision to be made was either to lose access to Afghanistan’s natural resources and the insane amount of money flowing in from contra; or break away from the never-ending cycle of fighting and losing troops, territory, popularity and any possibility of saving face.
These are stories where the truth is hidden in plain sight and will continue to be so unless someone decides otherwise. I can only hope that one day, Pakistani and Afghan storytellers, writers, filmmakers and journalists will pick up the matter and take it upon themselves to narrate our stories. I fear that if we don’t, five years down the line, we will see Hollywood propaganda productions on the matter. There will be hit and super-hit films which overflow with stereotypes, full of white men speaking broken Pashto and Urdu. Washed with orange, dusty filters in post-production, these films will not only justify but glorify Afghanistan’s invasion. As the allies are seen fighting a pretentious drug war against “uncivilised and uncultured” Pakistanis and Afghans — the cost to my people in Pakistan, and our Afghan neighbours, will be drowned in a quagmire of silence.
