{"id":190691,"date":"2015-10-12T14:57:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T14:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=190691"},"modified":"2015-10-12T14:58:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T14:58:06","slug":"exposed-british-soldiers-protect-afghanistan-opium-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/exposed-british-soldiers-protect-afghanistan-opium-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Exposed: British Soldiers Protect Afghanistan Opium Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opium Harvesting, c.200 metres from Camp Bastion Airfield Perimeter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ant1\"<\/p>\n

Anthony C Heaford<\/p>\n

(RINF<\/a>) – In this 7.5\u00b0 view of Afghanistan, captured from an Airfield guard tower, we can see several less auspicious elements of the ISAF invasion and occupation:<\/p>\n

– Corruption
\n– Duplicity
\n– Heroin Production
\n– Incompetence<\/p>\n

The photograph shows five men harvesting opium a couple of hundred metres from Camp Bastion perimeter defences, seen in the foreground.<\/p>\n

Not only was this illegal drug production being carried out in the shadow of ISAF\u2019s Main\u00a0Operating Base, it was being done under the protection of British soldiers. Her Majesty\u2019s\u00a0Armed Forces (Army and RAF) were protecting this man\u2019s cash crop from illicit \u2018taxation\u2019\u00a0by the Afghan National Police or Army.<\/p>\n

The duplicity is in what the Ministry of Defence tell people we are doing, and what we are actually doing. As this photo was taken there was a World Service edition of \u2018From Our\u00a0Own Correspondent\u2019 playing. The particular BBC correspondent, Quentin Sommerville,\u00a0was \u2018embedded\u2019 with British soldiers in Helmand, who were assisting in the destruction of\u00a0poppy fields. This must raise the question as to why poppy fields on the edge of Bastion\u2019s\u00a0airfield were protected whilst another farmer\u2019s crop in a neighboring valley was
\ndestroyed?<\/p>\n

\"ant2\"<\/p>\n

The land in the once barren valley was now watered by the effluent of the 30,000 people\u00a0living in Camp Bastion, creating a mini property boom for the owner of the land, a\u00a0Mohammad Daoud. The valley bordering Camp Bastion\u2019s airfield had become a busy\u00a0agricultural area, with parcels of land rented out to tenant farmers, migrant farm laborers\u00a0camping a hundred metres from the defences, plus all the associated traffic.<\/p>\n

Whether this\u00a0is the same Mohammad Daoud as former Governor of Helmand Province Mohammad
\nDaoud is yet to be confirmed. If confirmed, the irony of former Governor Daoud having\u00a0previously championed British poppy eradication efforts would illustrate our corruption\u00a0accurately.<\/p>\n

To quote former Governor Daoud:<\/p>\n

“Unless the international community includes poppy eradication and\u00a0fighting drugs in their list of ways to fight terrorism, they will not succeed\u00a0in this fight because it (the drug trade) is the fuel in the machine of
\nterrorism.”<\/p>\n

Our incompetence is best \u2018illustrated\u2019 by the deaths of two US Marines, Sergeant Bradley\u00a0Atwell and Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Raible, and the destruction of \u00a3200+ million\u00a0worth of equipment, in the Taliban\u2019s audacious airfield raid of 2012.<\/p>\n

The attackers of 14th\u00a0September launched the raid from this same valley, where despite it\u2019s proximity to\u00a0\u00a3\u00a3\u00a3Billions of aircraft across the airfield, the Command appeared to assess the risk there\u00a0as minimal to non existent. This \u2018lax\u2019 attitude (criminal negligence in my eyes) reportedly\u00a0extended to not providing any night vision equipment to soldiers guarding the airfield on\u00a0a moonless Afghan night. To describe this as simple \u2018incompetence\u2019 is being very generous\u00a0indeed to those responsible.<\/p>\n

Two men are dead because the British Army and Royal Air Force failed to protect a\u00a0stationary target \u2014 an airfield. I can only apologize for my part in that.<\/p>\n

Author: Anthony C Heaford
\nCraftsman \/ Vehicle Mechanic in British Territorial Army 2009 to 2013, No.30088729.
\nSix month tour of Afghanistan, April to October 2012. Based in Camp Bastion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opium Harvesting, c.200 metres from Camp Bastion Airfield Perimeter Anthony C Heaford (RINF) – In this 7.5\u00b0 view of Afghanistan, captured from an Airfield guard tower, we can see several less auspicious elements of the ISAF invasion and occupation: – Corruption – Duplicity – Heroin Production – Incompetence The photograph shows five men harvesting opium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-190691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}