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Biden Goes to Afghanistan, Drug Raids Imminent

Bump and Update: The WSJ confirms: The U.S. will fight the war on drugs in Afghanistan and enlist Iran in our effort.

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Coincidence? Vice-President Joe Biden, architect of innumerable oppressive U.S. crime bills, visits Afghanistan and the Nato Commander announces drug raids in Afghanistan are imminent.

NATO has been wanting to do this since last fall but didn't have the manpower. That problem seems solved. [More...]

"Activities and actions will occur soon that will be helpful," Craddock told reporters. "We've got to get started."

....Pentagon officials have said they expect to send as many as 30,000 more troops there, including several brigades in the coming months.

Keep your eye on Congress and attempts to pass more narco-terrorism laws we don't need here in the U.S.

< The 'Evil Twin Brother' Defense Produces Acquittal | Military Lawyer: Gitmo Conditions Have Worsened Since Inauguration >
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  • Display: Sort:
    How much (none / 0) (#1)
    by SOS on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:28:23 AM EST
    this going to cost?

    in money or lives? (none / 0) (#2)
    by Jeralyn on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:30:25 AM EST
    Drug interdication: not what I understood (none / 0) (#3)
    by oculus on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:31:57 AM EST
    from Obama's comments during the debates on upping the ante in Afghanistan.

    Biden to Afghanastan, Kissinger to Russia, (none / 0) (#4)
    by DFLer on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:35:09 AM EST
    Holbrook to Pakistan, Mitchell to Middle East.

    What does Clinton get to do? Make cookies?

    China (none / 0) (#10)
    by squeaky on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 11:57:51 AM EST
    Does she (none / 0) (#11)
    by jbindc on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 12:00:50 PM EST
    get to pick out China and clean it or deal with them politically? <snark>

    Parent
    Already Did That (none / 0) (#12)
    by squeaky on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 12:43:59 PM EST
    Now she is onto something else:

    The US State Department says the one week trip from February 15th through 22nd will stop in Japan, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea and China. It says issues such as the ongoing global financial crisis and climate change will be on top of her agenda.

    link

    Parent

    she gets to make fortune cookies? (none / 0) (#13)
    by DFLer on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 01:14:34 PM EST
    Yip (none / 0) (#5)
    by SOS on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:35:11 AM EST
    In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.

    These drug (none / 0) (#6)
    by SOS on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:43:03 AM EST
    wars are great cover for "regime changes" and other "adventures".

    Just tell the truth. Where going in, where kicking ass, taking that country, running that pipeline, and taking over.

    Somewhere in China, (none / 0) (#7)
    by ThatOneVoter on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 10:58:35 AM EST
    a counterpart to Brzezinski is gloating right now.

    Parent
    Next? US forces will arrest Karzai for drug lord (none / 0) (#14)
    by jawbone on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 01:51:18 PM EST
    "stuff." Karzai is no longer a US favorite, especially bcz he won't shut up about all the civilians killed in our bombing raids. He's become an irritant; BushCo was making noises about getting him out if he doesn't "cooperate"; I imagine Petraeus et al are not wild about him.

    Now, it's up to Biden and Obama...I guess. Does he stay or does he go...one way or another.

    And, did I mention he won't STFU about US/NATO raids killing civilians?

    Not going to be pretty.

    Parent

    So? (none / 0) (#15)
    by Fabian on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 03:48:36 PM EST
    We could just leave and let him duke it out with the Taliban on his own.

    Parent
    Gee..I get no warm fuzzy feeling (none / 0) (#8)
    by fly on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 11:50:45 AM EST
    Knowing this, in fact I would say look out cities in this country and Canada..the drug trade is about to get a big infusion!!
    Wow, are people still this naive?????

    quote:

    Another: In 2002 Markopolos said he discovered billions of dollars in "dirty money" was being funneled into Madoff Securities through a series of off-shore accounts.

    "When you're that big and that secretive, you're going to attract a lot of organized crime money, and which we ... now know came from the Russian mob and the Latin-American drug cartel," Markopolos said.

    Let us all understand the North American Union and superhighway even Dems passed and don't want to talk about!!

    Madoff Whistleblower Talks
    The man who tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme told Congress that the SEC was unreceptive to his information. Armen Keteyian reports.

    February 5, 2009

     Watch CBS Videos Online

    http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4776637n

    On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the financial analyst who first blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff back in 2000 went public for the first time, stunning lawmakers with the full scope of the $50 billion fraud. CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

    In two hours of riveting, no-holds barred testimony, Harry Markopolos revealed the depth - and danger - of his nine-year fight to expose the Madoff scandal.

    Markopolos said at one point he feared for his life.

    "He would have known my name and, he knew he had a team tracking him. I didn't think I was long for this world," he said.

    One reason: Bernie Madoff was among the "most powerful men" on Wall Street.

    Another: In 2002 Markopolos said he discovered billions of dollars in "dirty money" was being funneled into Madoff Securities through a series of off-shore accounts.

    "When you're that big and that secretive, you're going to attract a lot of organized crime money, and which we ... now know came from the Russian mob and the Latin-American drug cartel," Markopolos said.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A 162-page document filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan late Wednesday lists several thousand of the people and entities that handed money over to Madoff to "invest". Among the victims are some very well-known personalities - and Madoff's own defense lawyer. Click here to read more.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Markopolos said he began his crusade back in late 1999, when he was asked by his employer to see if he could match an investment strategy that produced unusually steady returns - like Madoff's.

    "It took me about five minutes to figure out that he was a fraud," Markopolos said.

    Despite "gift wrapping" evidence of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Markopolos ran into a stone wall at the SEC. It was an agency, he charged, was unwilling and incapable of following his leads.

    I gave them a road map and a flashlight to find the fraud, and they didn't go where I told them to go.

    Harry Markopolos, Fraud investigator
    "I gave them a road map and a flashlight to find the fraud, and they didn't go where I told them to go," Markopolos said.

    And he wasn't the only one warning the feds.

    This anonymous letter sent in April 2006 to the head of the SEC was obtained exclusively by CBS News.

    In it, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox is told that Madoff keeps two "sets of records. The most interesting of which is on his computer which is always on his person."

    The letter was sent to Cox once on Dec. 6, 2006, and then again on April 26, 2006. The second letter has a note at the top saying, "Dear Sir, this is sent in the event you did not receive the original."

    The letter is also stamped, "Received: 2006 March 31, Chairman's Correspondence Unit." The anonymous writer says Madoff is perpetrating a "scandal of major proportion ..."

    But again, nothing happened.

    Hardly surprising to former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who told CBS News "higher ups" pushed investigators into cases that made headlines and careers.

    "They were actively discouraged from going after Ponzi schemes, pump-and-dump schemes, and things that were considered small cases," Paul Atkins, former SEC commissioner, said. "Actively discouraged by their superiors."

    As to the question of whether Bernie Madoff pulled off $50 billion worth of fraud all by himself?

    Markopolos had a very simple answer: "No."

    © MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc.

    In Colombia, (none / 0) (#9)
    by jeffinalabama on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 11:52:49 AM EST
    not sure about other South American countries, there were initiatives to give the farmers other crops to grow... not terribly succesful, but an attempt was made.

    So how's that interdiction working out in terms of lowering the amount of drugs entering the US?

    It's a demand problem, not a supply problem, as they say in Colombia.

    "Drug raids"? In A-stan? (none / 0) (#16)
    by SeeEmDee on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 05:06:06 PM EST
    What are they going to do, lock up the whole country? The only crop worth a damn there is poppy. It's all that's keeping the civilian economy going - what bloody little there is of an economy after over 3 decades of war.

    Try screwing with the opium trade, and every Afghan, regardless of tribe, will be banding together to get us out, like they did the Russ. As someone above said, the Chinese equivalent of Zbig is probably chortling over his rice bowl at the rank effin' STUPIDITY of this move. And Putin? Probably laughing his a$$ off in the Kremlin.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same...

    Indeed, our stupidity seems irreversible (none / 0) (#17)
    by Dadler on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 07:46:18 PM EST
    Doing the same dumb thing, year after year, decade after decade, and NEVER seeing a lasting and positive result, well, the only thing you call that really is just plain crazy.  Fugginuts.  With a strong streak of malevolence our authorities seem not only to deny, but to relish at the same time.  Sick phucking mindset.  Deeply ill.

    Parent
    Afghan economy (none / 0) (#18)
    by opit on Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 11:30:00 PM EST
    Think about it.
     People's homes are being shot up by rockets targeted by people a continent away by way of 'analysis' of phone conversations eavesdropped on by foreign invaders hunting the Taliban - who were the former government.
    The cash crop is being destroyed while people in India lack cheap painkillers in hospitals.
    30% of the population are at imminent risk of starvation.
    Training institutions in the U.S. have been subverted by religious zealots who teach that officers are Islamic sympathizers - and Muslims are followers of the AntiChrist.
    And 'tactics' are discussed while implementing drug interdiction policies which violate the government precepts of participating troops of the - this is the part that kills me in an Asian land war - mutual defense partnership of Atlantic nations.
    Defense from attack!
    Obviously proven need has no part in formal cooperative arrangements to murder foreigners. This while tactics are discussed as if there were any doubt as how to best proceed.
    After all : Afghanistan has been won before.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War