Market Farming

[sora <sora AT coldreams.com>]

I vote to bomb them with Butter.

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• From: "Marty Hine" <hinesite2 AT earthlink.net>
• To: "sora" <sora AT coldreams.com>
• Subject: Fw: Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
• Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:22:08 -0600

----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward A. Hine" <ezhine AT optonline.net>
To: <hinesite2 AT earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 1:11 PM
Subject: Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban


> Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
> By Robert Scheer
> Published May 22, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times
>
>
> Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every
> vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will
> embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug
> war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
>
> That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban
> rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human
> rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary
of

> State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the
main
> sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that
> opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's
> estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that
> catches this administration's attention.
>
> Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American
> terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other
> crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in
> 1998.
>
> Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a
time
> when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on
> Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
>
> The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps
> all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has
> subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of
> terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women?
>
> At no point in modern history have women and girls been more
systematically
> abused than in Afghanistan where, in the name of madness masquerading as
> Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights.
> Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with
> the oppressive shroud called the burkha , and they may not leave the house
> without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been
> permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have
> been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter.
>
> The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme
> religious theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior,
> from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown. It is this last power
that
> has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House.
>
> The Taliban fanatics, economically and diplomatically isolated, are at the
> breaking point, and so, in return for a pittance of legitimacy and cash
from
> the Bush administration, they have been willing to appear to reverse
> themselves on the growing of opium. That a totalitarian country can
> effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising. But it is
grotesque
> for a U.S. official, James P. Callahan, director of the State Department's
> Asian anti-drug program, to describe the Taliban's special methods in the
> language of representative democracy: "The Taliban used a system of
> consensus-building," Callahan said after a visit with the Taliban, adding
> that the Taliban justified the ban on drugs "in very religious terms."
>
> Of course, Callahan also reported, those who didn't obey the theocratic
> edict would be sent to prison.
>
> In a country where those who break minor rules are simply beaten on the
spot
> by religious police and others are stoned to death, it's understandable
that
> the government's "religious" argument might be compelling. Even if it
means,
> as Callahan concedes, that most of the farmers who grew the poppies will
now
> confront starvation. That's because the Afghan economy has been ruined by
> the religious extremism of the Taliban, making the attraction of opium as
a
> previously tolerated quick cash crop overwhelming.
>
> For that reason, the opium ban will not last unless the U.S. is willing to
> pour far larger amounts of money into underwriting the Afghan economy.
>
> As the Drug Enforcement Administration's Steven Casteel admitted, "The bad
> side of the ban is that it's bringing their country--or certain regions of
> their country--to economic ruin." Nor did he hold out much hope for Afghan
> farmers growing other crops such as wheat, which require a vast
> infrastructure to supply water and fertilizer that no longer exists in
that
> devastated country. There's little doubt that the Taliban will turn once
> again to the easily taxed cash crop of opium in order to stay in power.
>
> The Taliban may suddenly be the dream regime of our own war drug war
> zealots, but in the end this alliance will prove a costly failure. Our
long
> sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the
> futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession.
>
> - - -
>
> Robert Scheer Is a Syndicated Columnist.
>
>
> Copyright © 2001 Robert Scheer
>
>
>
>


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