{"id":323715,"date":"2017-08-29T17:16:35","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T16:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-cia-heroin-ratline\/"},"modified":"2017-08-29T17:16:35","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T16:16:35","slug":"the-cia-heroin-ratline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-cia-heroin-ratline\/","title":{"rendered":"The CIA Heroin Ratline"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>The Persian Gulf harbors an array of extremely compromising secrets. Near the top is the Afghan heroin ratline \u2013 with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) positioned as the golden node of a transnational, trillion dollar heroin money laundering operation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this 21st century Opium War, crops harvested in\u00a0Afghanistan are essentially feeding the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sputniknews.com\/asia\/201701291050133987-afghanistan-drugs-heroin-factories\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">heroin<\/a>\u00a0market not only in\u00a0Russia and Iran but\u00a0especially\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/storyline\/americas-heroin-epidemic\/heroin-use-spikes-fivefold-u-s-n740051\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in\u00a0the US<\/a>. Up to\u00a093% of\u00a0the world\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sputniknews.com\/asia\/201701291050133987-afghanistan-drugs-heroin-factories\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">opium<\/a>\u00a0comes from\u00a0Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to\u00a0predominant Western perception, this is not an Afghan Taliban operation. The key questions\u00a0\u2014 never asked by\u00a0Atlanticist circles\u00a0\u2014 are who buys the opium harvests; refines them into\u00a0heroin; controls the export routes; and then sell them for\u00a0humongous profit compared to\u00a0what the Taliban have locally imposed in\u00a0taxes.<\/p>\n<p>The hegemonic narrative rules that Washington bombed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sputniknews.com\/world\/201708241056742892-us-afghanistan-trump-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Afghanistan\u00a0<\/a>in\u00a02001 in \u201cself-defense\u201d after\u00a09\/11; installed a \u201cdemocratic\u201d government; and after\u00a016 years never de facto left because this is a key node in\u00a0the Global War on\u00a0Terror (GWOT), against\u00a0al-Qaeda and the Taliban alike.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmi-gold-silver.com\/specials-silver\/?utm_source=LRC_Text_Ad&amp;utm_campaign=silver_specials\">Buy Silver at Discounted Prices<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Washington spent over $100 billion in\u00a0Afghan reconstruction. And, allegedly,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/world\/heroin-use-grows-u-s-poppy-crops-thrive-afghanistan-n388081\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$8.4 billion<\/a>\u00a0in \u201ccounternarcotics programs\u201d. Operation Enduring Freedom\u00a0\u2014 along\u00a0with the \u201cliberation\u201d of\u00a0Iraq\u00a0\u2014 have cost an astonishing several trillion dollars. And still the heroin ratline, out\u00a0of occupied Afghanistan,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/us-congresss-take-on-the-heroin-epidemic-6400-tons-produced-in-us-occupied-afghanistan\/5551938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">thrives<\/a>. Cui bono?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have a SIGAR<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An exhaustive\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unodc.org\/unodc\/en\/frontpage\/2016\/October\/afghan-opium-production-up-43-percent_-survey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Afghanistan Opium Survey<\/a>\u00a0details the steady rise of\u00a0Afghan opium production as\u00a0well as\u00a0the sprawl in\u00a0production areas; \u201cIn 2016, opium production had increased by\u00a0approximately 25 times in\u00a0relation to\u00a0its 2001 levels, from\u00a0185 tons in\u00a02001 to\u00a04800 tons&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2017\/08\/no_author\/cia-heroin-ratline\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Persian Gulf harbors an array of extremely compromising secrets. Near the top is the Afghan heroin ratline \u2013 with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) positioned as the golden node of a transnational, trillion dollar heroin money laundering operation. In this 21st century Opium War, crops harvested in\u00a0Afghanistan are essentially feeding the\u00a0heroin\u00a0market not only in\u00a0Russia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-323715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323715","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=323715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}