If North Korea finds itself targeted for regime change, history suggests that the U. S. military may end up guarding its poppy fields as well.
Authored by Whitney Webb via TheAntiMedia.org,
When the U. S. overthrew the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 as part of its newly launched “war on terror, ” it set the stage for the explosive growth of Afghanistan’s dying opium industry. A few short months before the invasion took place, the Taliban made headlines for having “dramatically ended the country’s massive opium trade” after the leader of the fundamentalist group had declared the substance to be un-Islamic. At the time, Afghanistan’s opium was used to produce 75 percent of the world’s heroin.
But despite being squashed by the Taliban, the opium market made a dramatic comeback immediately following the U. S. invasion in October 2001. Not only was the opium trade restored, it surged drastically – rising from a production level of 185 tons under the Taliban (before the production ban) to 3,400 tons in 2002.
Over a decade later, the amount of opium harvested annually continues to rise. Afghanistan’s opium is now used to produce 90 percent of the world’s heroin. This increase has been directly overseen by U. S. forces, who openly guard Afghanistan’s poppy fields. Indeed, during that same time, the U. S. government claims to have spent $8.4 billion on counternarcotic programs within Afghanistan.
The dramatic increase in opium production in post-invasion Afghanistan has sparked speculation regarding the motives behind the aggressive action that the U. S. has recently taken towards North Korea, which is also a major opium producer.
While government-sanctioned opium production took a hit after Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011, things have changed drastically in recent months, largely due to Chinese sanctions that were announced in mid-February.
