Introduction
When Nixon first declared ‘war on drugs’ in 1971, there were fewer than half a million hard-core addicts in the nation …Three decades later, despite the expenditure of $1 trillion in federal and state tax dollars, the number of hard-core addicts is shortly expected to exceed five million.1 - Former DEA agent Michael Levine (qtd. in Scott, American War Machine 121)2
A provocative case can be made that US drug policy contributes effectively to the control of an ethnically distinct and economically deprived underclass at home and serves US economic and security interests abroad. (Bergquist, Peñaranda and Sánchez 210)
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervened initially in Afghanistan by assisting in recruiting, training and funding the mujahedeen against the Soviet Union and later funding and supporting drug lords. Since these interventions, the amount of opium produced in Afghanistan has increased massively; transforming from small-scale operations, to a mass exporter; producing over 90% of opium on the World market (UNODC 37). US intervention correlating with a huge increase in the amount of drugs produced is not original to Afghanistan, it is a repetition of events in South East Asia and Central America, especially in the case of CIA support to the Contras in Nicaragua. Yet the policies and the discourse of American politicians on the ‘war on drugs’, as first posed by President Nixon in 1971 completely contradicts these
realities.
The implementation of the ‘war on drugs’ is twofold; domestically in the US and through US policy abroad. The impact within the US has been an increase in the number of people
arrested and incarcerated under drug prohibition laws, during the 1980s, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose by 126% (Austin and McVey 2). This increase has been heavily criticised by
1 Three decades Afghanistan had almost no Heroin addicts. Now there are more than one million (Scott, American
War Machine 122)
both human rights organisations and scholars as being racially discriminatory, as the majority of the increase in arrests has been in black and Hispanic Americans (Austin and McVey 6).
Furthermore a conviction for drug related offences has come to allow collateral consequences, such as denial of public benefits or licenses can be imposed when convicted of drug related offences, which are not applicable for any other crime (Chin 261-264). According to Blumenson and Nilsen, the ‘war in drugs’ created an underclass within America, without voting rights, state welfare and struggling to find employment (81-82).
Abroad, the ‘war on drugs’ has been the justification for a number of military operations in Mexico, Panama, Columbia and Honduras, alongside the provision of military aid and training of state militaries and insurgent militias alike. However, Bullington and Block have suggested that these operations have often been about fighting leftist political groups, rather than targeting the suppliers of drugs (39). The operations certainly have not achieved much success, as in the most recent estimates available, the illegal drugs trade accounts for an estimated 8% of World trade (UNDOC 124).
The glaring contradiction of the ‘war on drugs’ lies in the fact that the CIA has repeatedly supported drug producers and traffickers and even been involved in incidents of trafficking itself.3 According to Gary Webb, the CIA funded Contra rebels in Nicaragua, whilst fully aware that they were producing and trafficking cocaine to the US (2). The CIA helped Kuomintang forces, whom were fighting against Mao Zedong, smuggle opium from China to Thailand, by providing aeroplanes from ‘Air America’, a front business for CIA activities (Cockburn and St Clair 215). Scott suggests the CIA funded cocaine traffickers in Columbia (Oil Drugs and War
3 The CIA is not the only clandestine agency which has been involved in the drugs trade, others such as the British
M16, Pakistani ISI and Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (see Lewis), yet as they are one of the largest and most influential for this thesis, the CIA will be the subject of the research.
85-89). In South East Asia, the CIA funded heroin traffickers in Vietnam, Laos and Burma, who sought to transport opium to the US (McCoy 19).
In Afghanistan, the CIA played a pivotal role in creating the mujahedeen, many of whom became influential drug lords (Mamdani 130, 141). After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, US funding of smuggler warlords within the Northern Alliance (Coll 536, Rashid 320). Opium production and heroin trafficking are illegal by both international law and are forbid in the constitution of Afghanistan, which states “The state prevents all types of terrorist activities and production and smuggling of narcotics” ("The Constitution of Afghanistan" 6).4 Nevertheless, the production of opium over the last decade has tripled (UNDOC 21).
4 Although see Spivack 467, for a discussion on the translation from Pashtu and Dari and its nuance in the
The impact of the increase in opium production is huge; there are more heroin addicts now than ever before, both in Afghanistan and Europe and North America (Scott, American War Machine 121-122). There is an extensive field of factual literature on CIA interventions with the relation to the drug trade, but little which delves deeper, by questioning why US intervention leads to an increase in the production of drugs (See Chapter 1). There are two potential explanations to the linkage. One is negligence, disorganization and lack of communication between departments, which has led the CIA to fund drug lords, while the DEA (Drugs
Enforcement Agency) hunts them. However, mere claims of "miscommunication" do not account for the fact that the CIA has, on occasion, directly blocked the DEA from detaining known drug lords (see Chapter 2). Indeed, such behavior strongly suggests an alternative explanation, namely that the overt propagation of the War on Drugs narrative on the one hand, and the covert support for drug lords and drug production on the other, serves an unacknowledged strategic and political need of the United States. Although the literature surrounding the opium trade is extensive, in tends to focus on the methods and strategies for combatting it. Goodhand points out that although little is written on how the growth of the opium trade impacted the people of Afghanistan, it has led to significant changes in the lives of many ("Holy War" 11). Therefore, this thesis will attempt to attempt to questions why US powers would allow, or even engineer an increase in the production and trade of opium in Afghanistan, and what the impact on the people of Afghanistan is.
Two theoretical lenses will be used as analytical frameworks. Firstly, the neo-Gramscian theory of hegemony states that the hegemonic power is the dominant force which controls the means of production on a global level. Secondly, the World Systems theory, as formulated by Wallenstein explains how the current World market system, surplus produce travels from
periphery countries to the core. Through intervention in the market by powerful states, those on the periphery are exploited and, inequalities created by the system are perpetuated.
Argument Structure
In whole, the thesis hopes to answer the over-arching research question:
How has intervention by the CIA and other agents since 1979 in the production and trade of opium in Afghanistan impacted the social structures in the Badakshan Province and how can the theoretical lenses of ‘World Systems Theory’ and ‘Neo – Gramscian Hegemony’ help us
understand CIA interventions in the drug trade?
In order to answer this question, a combination of neo-gramscian hegemony critique, and World System theory will provide an analytical framework with which to examine this topic; their origins, characteristics, and most important claims will be examined in the first chapter. The second chapter will give an overview of CIA interventions in Afghanistan and more analytically, what role CIA assets have played in opium production and trade. The third chapter is a case study of the Badakshan Province, and investigates what impact the presence of the opium trade has had on the people there, through the social, economic and political changes related both directly and indirectly to opium production. The broader implications of US intervention and the increase in the drug trade are discussed in the conclusion, alongside some recommendations as to what steps could be taken.
Theoretical Framework
We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world. The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states. Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders.….America will encourage the advancement of democracy and economic openness in nations, because these are the best foundations for domestic stability and international order. We will strongly resist aggression from other great powers—even as we welcome their peaceful pursuit of prosperity, trade, and cultural advancement. (National Security Strategy of the United States 2002)
Literature Review
The most prominent author to discuss the CIA intervention in the opium trade is Alfred McCoy. Despite offering an extensive overview of CIA interferences in the production and transport of opium, he offers little theoretical discussion as to why they have intervened, and tends to view it as complacency. Cockburn and St Clair Peter similarly offer investigative journalism into the incidents of CIA intervention in the drugs trade without offering theoretical explanations. Peter Dale Scott, initially in Oil Drugs and War offers a similar narrative, yet from the perspective of US strategies designed around oil, which intersect with the narcotics trade in regions which can supply both (29).
Peter Dale Scott, initially in Oil Drugs and War offers a similar narrative, yet from the perspective of US strategies designed around oil, which intersect with narcotics trade, and
demonstrates similar dynamics, in regions which can supply both (29). He later refines this claim in American War Machine, where he suggests an apparatus both within the American
government and externally is enabling and encouraging the CIA to use drug traffickers as assets as part of the aggressive ‘war machine’, whose aim is US supremacy, and which profits from the
illegal drugs trade. In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky addresses both the drugs trade and US military interventions, theorising that a socio-economic elite from within the United states have used political, military and economic means to pursue an ‘Imperial Grand Strategy’ since the end of the Second World War (11). This thesis follows a similar theoretical argument, that by US hegemony, as described by the neo-gramscian school of thought, uses the international drugs trade as a means of control and finance both within the US and globally. Wallensteins ‘World Systems’ theory provides an overview of how profits from the production and trade of narcotics are channelled to the core.
Hegemony theory, identifies a dominant state ‘hegemon’ within the international system gains and maintains power by making its own ideology the prevailing one throughout societies worldwide, both by consent and by coercion, to assert dominance over other social classes. Robert Cox applies hegemony to international relations, in what is now broadly termed ‘neo-hegemony’. Wallenstein was also inspired by Karl Marx’s focus on the economy as the key to power structures, with surplus moving from poor countries to richer countries, with the economic benefits going to the latter. This, he coined ‘World Systems’ theory. Scholars do not usually combine these two theories, because whilst the World System theory is what Cox refers to as a ‘problem solving theory’, neo-gramscian hegemony is a ‘critical theory’ and therefore more encompassing ("Social Forces, States and World Orders" 128-130). Yet, as this thesis explores both the international drugs trade and CIA intervention in Afghanistan, ‘world system theory’, can be a powerful lens for understanding the movement of illegal substances through the markets, from periphery to core, whereas ‘hegemony’ is used as a lens to analyse the actions and strategic role of US agents in the context of maintaining the global power structure. The combination of the two theories will provide the framework to discuss the relation of the opium trade in relation
to the CIA intervention in Afghanistan, and the rhetoric of the global ‘war on drugs’. However, to understand the implications of this synthesis, it is important to look more closely at the most important concepts supplied by both theories.
Hegemony
Former leader of the Italian communist party, Antonio Gramsci developed the theory of hegemony during his time as a political prisoner in the 1930s, published in his Prison Notebooks. Gramsci aimed to critique both fascism and the capitalist organization of societies to find a different way to organize social and political structures to benefit the working classes. Using Karl Marx’s ‘theory of the power’ of the economy as a base, Gramsci agreed the economy wields the power to control, but his theory is more critical and comprehensive than relying purely on the economy (Bates 351). The theory of hegemony is that the ruling elites assert and maintain power both through coercion and consent, because their ideas are accepted as the dominant ones in society. Gramsci states: “The methodological criterion on which our own study must be based is that the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as ‘domination’ and as
‘intellectual and moral leadership” (57). Gramsci had already noted that the concept of the state should be expanded further than the bureaucratic framework of the government, to encompass religion, education and media (Cox "Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations" 164). In this theory, he maintains the state as the key actor, yet discusses the social order and non-state actors, therefore encompassing more than most theories. Taking the combination of consent and coercion from Machiavelli, both Gramsci and Cox recognize that coercion is only used when necessary, in cases of deviation and challenge to the norms defined by hegemonic power (Cox "Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations" 165).
Different time periods are defined by the various forms of state, and the context of the power struggle; both within the state and externally. These features characterise a specific ‘historic bloc’, an era which is defined by the way leading social forces establish a relationship over the other forces, usually based on class interests (Cox "Gramsci, Hegemony and
International Relations" 167). Cox further explains;
Antonio Gramsci used the concept of hegemony to express a unity between objective material forces and ethico-political ideas – in Marxian terms, a unity of structure and superstructure – in which power based on dominance over
production is rationalized through an ideology incorporating compromise or consensus between dominant and subordinate groups. ("Labor and Hegemony" 387)
Cox applied Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to the relations between states. Therein, the dominant social classes establishing hegemony over subordinate classes in society is not simply maintained within states, but transverses boundaries. With inter-connectedness between
countries, governments and through the interdependence of economies, hegemony reaches from an individual community level to an international level. Within this system, coercion becomes less used, as consent becomes more prominent. Hegemony is formed and maintained within social relations of production (referring not only to material goods, but also to knowledge, morals and institutions),5 forms of state and World orders (Cox, Production, Power, and World Order
39). Cox identifies the patterns of production relations as the starting point for analysis of the operation and mechanisms of hegemony, as by tracing changes in production, one can begin to recognize the social forces which have become the bases of power within states and networks of power across states within a World order (Production, Power, and World Order 8). The
transnational capitalist class benefits from and maintains the power structures through democracy
5 Within the production of knowledge and morals in society, non-class issues such as feminism, ecology and peace
promotion, international financial instruments, international law and in worse case scenarios; intervention (Bates 353).
Powerful groups in society change with revolution, of which two types are recognised by Cox, one a top-down process, the other a bottom- up. The first is social revolution, which
happens through a challenge by the lower social classes within a system, creating a new social and economic order, as exemplified in Britain and France (Cox, "Gramsci, Hegemony and
International Relations" 165). The second is ‘passive revolution’, in which, a new powerful group and ideology is imported or enforced upon a system from abroad, without fully replacing the previous power structures (Cox, "Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations" 166).
Cox identified the United States as the dominant power, within the current historical Bloc, the era of ‘pax Americana’, wherein the dominant ideology accepted by the majority is neo-liberalism (Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders’144). It gained this position, according to Cox, when it took the leading role in building trading partnerships, exclusive only of the Soviet Union, consisting of Western Europe, Japan and the ‘Third World’ (Cox, Production, Power, and World Order 354).6 Chomsky agrees with Cox, that the US is a hegemonic power, and that through their dominant status, they have used the drug trade to both profit and as a tool of repression. He neglects, though to discuss Afghanistan.
The theory of hegemony can be used to view American intervention in Afghanistan with regards to the position of Afghanistan and the United States within global power structures. For years, the hegemonic power, either pax Britannia or pax America has tried to enforce their social, economic and political norms onto Afghanistan through either invasion or funding different groups (often under the guise of ‘aid’) (Medler 279). They were largely unsuccessful until the funding of the mujahedeen during the Cold War era, where the US not only gained alliances, but
helped create powerful groups within Afghanistan which are still highly influential, challenged only by the extreme Taliban. Therefore, the hegemonic power of the US over Afghanistan was largely completed by the 2001 invasion which ousted the Taliban and began the neoliberalisation of the economy and further growth of the opium trade. American hegemony can be seen in the quote from the national security strategy the chapter opens with; promoting US values, such as democracy and economic openness, and threatening any state which challenges US powers.
World Systems Theory
Alongside Neo-Gramscian hegemony, this thesis will also use the theoretical lens of World Systems theory, as developed by Immanuel Wallenstein in the 1970s. This theory
concentrates on economics and trade and will be used as a lens to view the opium production in Afghanistan, and its conversion into heroin and movement to the United States.
A structuralist explanation of production and consumption relations within global trade, the world system theory divides states into three categories; centre, semi –periphery and
periphery. The core states are the rich and powerful states, which have capital-intensive commodities, and an educated, skilled and well paid workforce (Chase-Dunn 347). The
periphery states are poor, with mostly unskilled workers, which are paid low wages and use only low capital intensity technology (Chase-Dunn 347). Taking this division of labour as the starting point, Wallenstein suggests looking for empirical links which tie groups together politically or culturally, and further look into the economic consequences of the bonds. These bonds are usually the commodity chains, where basic goods are produced at the periphery, but move towards the centre, increasing in price as they go yet the profit is rarely channelled back to the peripheral countries, reinforcing the inequality gap.
illustrated by Karl Marx, but with some changes. Whereas Marx viewed accumulation as a succession of matching national processes, Wallenstein describes it as a world process, with the global elite accrues the profits from peripheral surplus through the capitalist system and
neoliberalisation of the markets. The process operates through of the relationship between capital and labour, which creates inequalities which are repeatedly reproduced. This relationship works within a socio-political relationship which organizes production relations and inter state politics as such that formally rational considered, over substantially rational considerations come to govern the courses of action pursued by individuals, communities, organisations and states (Hopkins and Wallerstein 12).
Rémi Boivin applies the World system theory to the illegal drugs market. He identifies the economy of drugs (apart from marijuana), moving from production in the periphery to consumption in the core, as commodity chains, motivated by profit (3-4). The majority of heroin produced in Afghanistan is either shipped to the US or to Europe (UNDOC 22). Afghanistan is a poor country, where most of the citizens depend on agriculture for survival at the periphery of the World system, whereas the US and European states are rich, cosmopolitan nations at the core of the World System. The farm-gate price which Afghan farmers receive for the opium they produce is US$200 per kilo, whereas a gram of heroin sells on the street in New York for US$172 per gram (UNODC, 29). The movement of heroin from the peripheral Afghanistan to the core countries, combined with the economic profits which tend to remain at the core, or with the elite ‘Drug Lords’ in Afghanistan suggests Wallensteins World System theory is applicable to the heroin trade as suggested by Boivin. Furthermore, intervention in both the political structures and in the opium trade by the CIA has maintained and increased opium and heroin production which is in the interests of those profiting within the core.
CIA Intervention in the Opium Trade
“These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of Americas Founding Fathers” – US President Ronald Regan introducing mujahedeen leaders to the media. (qtd. in Mamdani 119).
“Your Government participated in creating a monster. Now it has turned against you and the World: 16,000 Arabs were trained in Afghanistan, made into a veritable killing machine.” – Algerian sociologist Mahfoud Bennoune to US correspondent (qtd. in Mamdani 140).
Cox recognises that when a state does not cooperate with the hegemonic power by consent, the hegemony may use force until the state adheres to the norms and ideology enforced by the hegemony ("Social Forces, States and World Orders" 144). Afghanistan’s history is littered with instances of foreign intervention through invasion or financial aid, and an
understanding of this context is important to fully grasp the reasons for CIA interventions in the country. The British waged three wars against Afghanistan, contemporary with the opium wars in China, from 1838–1842, and 1878–1880 and in 1919. The second war saw the British Empire gain control of Afghanistan’s foreign affairs, though this was returned after the third war. During the British Empires control of the Afghans, in 1893 the Durand line was drawn, dividing the Pashtun and Baloch territories, yet Afghanistan was not declared a sovereign state until 1919. In 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan seized power in Afghanistan in what was named the ‘Saur Revolution’. During the Cold War, Soviet forces supported
Afghanistan’s central government, whilst the resistance was funded by the United States through the CIA. During this warfare, over six million Afghan refugees fled to Pakistan and Iran. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, in 1989 civil war ensued throughout Afghanistan, cumulating with the seizure of Kabul in 1996 by the Taliban (backed by financial aid from Saudi Arabia and military aid from Pakistan). Their rule was challenged by the US
backed ‘Northern Alliance’, which allied with the NATO and US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. In 2001, after the Taliban was ousted from Kabul, US backed Hamid Karzai became president of the Afghan government until 2014, when US military presence also officially ended (making the war against ‘terror’ the US’s longest war).
This chapter will follow CIA interventions in Afghanistan; first during the Cold War, by their creation of the mujahedeen, then secondly with the funding and arming of drug lords who were instrumental in the opium trade (as discussed by Mamdani and McCoy).
The CIA and the Mujahedeen
CIA intervention began in its fullest form in Afghanistan in ‘Operation Cyclone’ lasting from 1978 to 1989, implemented six months before the invasion by the Soviet Union (Mamdani 123-124). During the Cold War era, Washington considered ‘Third World’ nationalism to be allied with the Soviet Union, whereas political Islam was considered to be at the disposal of the US to work against communism, and the US supported Islamic groups in Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt (Mamdani 120). It was even suggested by Zbigniew Brezezinski, President Carters
national security advisor, that secret US aid to Afghanistan was given to induce the Soviets to invade Afghanistan (qtd. in Mamdani 124). In order to assist militant rebels in Afghanistan, Carter contacted Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq, who had an excellent strategic position with which to conduct operations in Afghanistan, alongside hundreds of Islamic radicals residing in refugee camps who were offered a huge aid package in return for assistance in creating a resistance to the Soviets (McCoy 449). The CIA began working with the Pakistan’s Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI) to recruit and train anti-communist radical fighters for the mujahedeen, through reigniting the concept of jihad against the soviet non-believers. US funding allowed extreme Islamic lecturer, Sheik Azzam, to travel and recruit foreign fighters, including Osama
Bin laden, who the US chose to lead the jihad (Mamdani 127, 132). Whilst the CIA sent weapons (including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which went missing several years later) and surveillance information to the mujahedeen, the ISI controlled the transportation of the weapons and training within Afghanistan (Mamdani 130). The US also asked Egypt, China and Saudi Arabia to provide weapons for the mujahedeen and they all obliged, although Saudi Arabia sent $25 million in military aid directly, rather than via US or Pakistani channels (McCoy 448 - 449).
Mamdani suggests that the training in production of violence; the ‘privatisation of information’ in ‘creating militias – capable of terror’, alongside the weapons provided set the groundwork for future militant Islamic groups (138). Even in 1979, members of the mujahedeen had begun targeting the ‘West’, killing several Germans and a Canadian, whilst still being financed by US (Cockburn and St Clair 266). Mamdani further points out that the perpetrators of every major terrorist attack since were veterans of Afghanistan (139).7
McCoy discusses how actors within the White House foresaw the repercussions of the US involvement with mujahedeen fighters. David Musto is quoted as saying;
“we were going into Afghanistan to support the opium growers in their rebellion against the Soviets. Shouldn’t we try to avoid what we had done in Laos? Shouldn’t we try to pay the growers if they will eradicate their opium production? There was
silence.” (qtd. in McCoy 437).
Coinciding with the decline of opium production in Iran and Pakistan, mujahedeen
warlords began to expand their poppy fields, shipping to the Afghan-Pakistan border for opium to be refined into heroin. (McCoy 447, Peters 25). During CIA support for the mujahedeen US media failed to cover the huge growth in the amount of opium being produced by allies of the US government, even though by 1989, over half the heroin on the World market was produced by Afghanistan (447). The amount of heroin which had started reaching the US and Europe was
increasing rapidly, in 1980 heroin related injuries increased by 25% and following that, the US faced an ‘unprecedented drug crisis’. World opium production tripled within a decade (McCoy 439).
The CIA’s Drug Lords
"In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA." - Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit (qtd. in Scott and Marshall x-xi.).
After the Soviets withdrew from Kabul, the CIA continued involvement in Afghanistan and the opium trade through a series of ‘assets’ who were transferred large amounts of money by the CIA. Many of them were also drug lords; not only running their own opium production, but also involved in the trafficking of heroin to the United States. With American intervention in Afghanistan came a rapid increase in the amount of Opium produced. Washington supported Afghan President Hamid Karzai, even though he was known to be tied to several drug lords, including his own brother. In a leaked cable from the American embassy in Kabul, it is described how Karzai released a series of drug traffickers, including five policemen carrying large amounts of opium ("09KABUL2246"). This section will identify and discuss the roles of three key CIA assets and drug Lords, and one NATO funded, whom have played a major role in the increase in opium production throughout Afghanistan.8
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Probably the drug lord who profited most from the alliance with the CIA is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Scott, American War Machine 167). First introduced to the CIA envoy by the ISI, the leader of the small guerrilla group Hezbi-I Islami received over half of US aid to Afghanistan
8 These are not, by any means, the only CIA assets involved in the opium trade. Yet due to space requirements, these
during the period 1979 - 1984 (McCoy 449). After a history of being a radical Islamic activist and leader of a rebel army, Hekmatyar and his rebel army began to be funded by the CIA after the 1978 communist coup which ousted President Daud from Kabul (McCoy 451). This funding fuelled warlordlism within rebel leaders within the leaders of the Afghan resistance. During over a decade of fighting, Hekmatyars group, the Hezbi-I Islami became known for their brutal tactics; killing defectors, numerous human rights violations and a ‘reign of terror’ in Afghan refugee camps on the Pakistani border (the same camps where the Taliban was originally formed, to retaliate against the brutal rule of mujahedeen commanders). Despite this, CIA support for Hekmatyar continued. Hekmatyar also ran a prospering opium trade, encouraging his men to grow opium (Medler 280), alongside an extensive heroin syndicate, including six refineries which processed the opium harvest from the Helmand valley (McCoy 454). Since the CIA first started funding Hekmatyar, arguably the Worlds biggest heroin producer, he received more than one billion US$ from the US and its allies, more than any CIA asset has received previously or since and his group, the Hezbi-I Islami received over 700 million dollars worth of arms (Haq 962). A cable from the US embassy in Kabul, states that from 1988, the US realised it was a mistake funding Hekmatyar, yet all evidence suggests they continued regardless
("03KABUL1029"). Furthermore, during this time, opium production in Afghanistan increased from 200 metric tons, to 1,980 tons in 1991 when the US withdrew its official aid (Scott 13). Hekmatyar has been rumoured to be allied with Osama Bin Laden and those involved with both the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and the subsequent New York “day of terror” plot in 1995, had apparently trained or fought with Hekmatyar (Scott 118). Hekmatyar is still alive and trafficking heroin, although it is unknown if he continues to receive funding from the CIA.
Ahmed Wali Karzai
The brother of President Hamid Karzai, according to senior counternarcotics official Thomas Schweich, Afghan politicians and several scholars, Ahmed Wali Karzai was a major drug trafficker and paid by the CIA (Aikins 4, Scott 219, Mercille 298, Hussain 257). Karzai established a paramilitary forc which operates at CIA discretion (Filkins et al. 1). US Intelligence reports also tie Ahmed Wali Karzai to opium, alongside a series of highly suggestive incidents (qtd. in Shane and Lehren). It has also been suggested that finances from the opium trade helped to fix an electoral victory for Hamid Karzai (Scott, American War Machine 219). Both Wali Karzai and the US administration deny his drug smuggling, although a in cable released on wikileaks, the US officials wrote “While we must deal with AWK as the head of the Provincial Council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker” ("09KABUL3068").
Haji Bashar Noorzai
An important leader of the Noorzai tribe and wealthy warlord and heroin trafficker, Haji Bashar Noorzai worked with the CIA since 1990 (Hussain 255). Originally he helped the CIA track the lost stinger missiles which had been provided to the mujahedeen. DEA officials have stated that he was a key player in the production and export of opium, controlling fields that provided a significant amount of opium (Risen "An Afghan’s Path"). In 2002 an agreement was made between the CIA and Noorzai, by then a major drug trafficker (Scott "America’s
Afghanistan" 4). The CIA apparently agreed to tolerate Noorzai trafficking heroin into the United States, in exchange for information on the Taliban (Risen "An Afghans Path"). Powell suggests Noorzai had links to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. At one point, according the House International Relations Committee testimony, Noorzai was smuggling two metric tons of heroin into Pakistan every two weeks (qtd. in Scott, "America’s Afghanistan" 4), and according to a recently de-classified CIA report from 1998, was paying the Taliban for exporting heroin by
plane; US$230 per kilo (qtd. in Peters 82).
Mercille, states that by 2005 the DEA decided that an arrest of a high level Afghan heroin trafficker was needed, and they arrested Noorzai in New York (297). Risen discusses how the DEA held a secret indictment against him and persuaded him to come to the US on the promise they would not arrest him, yet used a private security firm as a front, contradictory to the immunity usually held by CIA assets ("An Afghan’s Path").
General Nazri Mahmad
More recently, since CIA funding drug-lords has been highlighted and criticized in the media, the United States forces has found a different and more subtle way of channelling funding to Opium producers or traffickers. In 2009, New York University released a report which
documented private security companies and militias being used by US and NATO forces (Aikins 23). Many of them are not only involved in numerous human rights abuses, but also the
production and trafficking of narcotics. An example of this is a Warlord General, Nazri Mahmad, of the Badakhshan Province, who “control[s] a significant portion of the province’s lucrative opium industry,” and was given the contract to provide security for the German Provincial Reconstruction Team (themselves a militarized unit, led under US command) (Mercille 298).
Complete Complicity
Whilst the US was funding mujahedeen fighters and later drug lords, it refused to destroy heroin labs even when given the opportunity in fear of upsetting is ‘allies’ (Rashid 320-321). During discussions with these same ‘allies’, the CIA focused its questions only on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, neglecting the topic of opium production and heroin trafficking, with the implication that it was acceptable to continue to produce heroin (Rashid 320). During the Taliban ban on opium production in 2001, the amount of opium produced in Northern Alliance areas,
supported by the US during the invasion, increased rapidly (Scott, American War Machine 32-33). Furthermore, the CIA did not allow the DEA to track opium production within Afghanistan, meaning even the own forces of the US could not act on (Scott, American War Machine 122). Aikins discusses how members of the CIA have been known to assassinate Afghans in official positions to give power to those within the informal networks they control (9). US media did not report the rapid increase in opium being produced in Afghanistan for several years, even though the opium was being refined into heroin in American held areas, and transported directly to the US (Scott, Oil, Dugs and War 32).
This chapter has discussed how the CIA intervened in Afghanistan, and in particular how this intervention has had a role in the opium economy in Afghanistan. CIA funding, training and recruitment shaped the form of the mujahedeen, with lasting repercussions on the ways that political Islam uses the concept of jihad, and the methods used. More recently, the CIA has funded a series of Drugs Lords, as ‘assets’, whilst turning a blind eye to the opium trade, therefore allowing its existence and growth. Many scholars have said that all levels of Afghan authority, from top politicians, to community leaders are now involved in the illegal opium trade, which developed rapidly during the era of American funded resistance.
Impact on the lives of people in the Badakshan Province
“The sheer size and illicit nature of the opium economy mean that it infiltrates andseriously affects Afghanistan’s economy, state, society and politics” – World Bank Report (qtd. in Scott, American War Machine 233).
The previous chapter described how the CIA has, for over a decade, been funding
Afghans involved in the drug trade, in a period which saw opium production treble (UNDOC 21). This rapid increase in the amount of opium being produced for trade has impacted the lives of many Afghans, seen in the shift in power structures and therefore the politics of a region, the rising inequality and therefore the economics of a region and in changes to traditional practices and therefore societal aspects of a region. As discussed by both Gramsci and Cox, the three are intertwined and influential on each other, therefore they should be considered collectively, rather than independently. Wallenstein, in the World Systems theory, and Boivin, applying the system to the drugs trade, discuss how surplus is channelled from the periphery to the core, and
intervention and coercion are used by the hegemony when sufficient produce is not reaching the core. The previous chapter explained how CIA and American intervention in Afghanistan affected the trade of opium and production of heroin, highlighting the case of the recent case of General Nazri Mahmad, an opium-producing warlord in the Badakshan Province, who was funded by the US and its allies.
Although many authors have discussed the opium trade, Goodhand points out that there are few works which discuss the effects of the growth in the production and transit of opium and its conversion into heroin on the Afghan people ("Holy War" 11). This chapter seeks to identify and discuss changes to societal and political structures bought about by the opium trade, which
have impacted the lives of people in Afghanistan, through a case study of the Badakshan Province.
Historical and Geo-Political Context
The Badakshan Province is in the far North-eastern part of Afghanistan; bordering Tajkistan to the North, China to the East and Pakistan to the South, it lays in a difficult to access position and therefore is at times semi-autonomous. It is the only province which did not fall to Taliban control, yet was a key region for the mujahedeen resistance against the Soviet Union and later a strong hold of the Northern Alliance. Traditionally, the region has long maintained the feudal – style system of land owners (Khans), even after the state action in the 1970s, which weakened this system in other provinces (Giustozzi and Orsini 3-4). Populations in the
Badakshan Province are mainly rural (96%) and therefore like most Afghans, the majority live off agriculture (Feinstein 24). Keeping livestock used to be an important source of income, but due to the destruction of the environment during the wars, and both the mujahedeen and Soviets raiding villages for food, many people stopped keeping animals (Goodhand "Holy War" 11). Employment is currently low in official roles, as most people that are working, do so in informal sectors (Feinstein 24). The region is one of the most impoverished in Afghanistan, and food insecurity is high, as is maternity mortality, due to lack of access to medical facilities (Hansen et al 5). Education though is widespread, and the rural literacy rate is one of the highest in the country (Giustozzi and Orsini 4).
Figure 2; Map showing Badakhshan Province (in red)
Source; Google Maps.
Originally a mujahedeen strong-hold, in 1980 Faizabad city was taken by the Soviet Union, those who cooperated with them, notably the Ismailis of Shighnan were favored by the Soviet bureaucrats, whereas the mujahedeen were slaughtered in large numbers (Hansen et al 6). Following the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, the Jamiat-i Islami, a Muslim party although with some communist ideologies, gained momentum in Badakhshan, fighting the Soviet backed Najibullah regime. The Bonn agreement in December 2001 aligned power with the Tajiks majority, rather than the Pashtuns, who held the majority of the power under Mohammed Daoud Khans government. Badakshan, having around 70% Tajik population, benefited from this new order imposed by the international community, and security in the region improved as a result (Feinstein 24). Opium production increased almost overnight with the Taliban edict on
production between 2000-2001; currently the region is a moderate producer according to
Feinstein, and an important trafficking hub, due to its geo-strategic position (8). The opium trade in the region has led to political, economic and societal changes.
Political Changes
During the period of mujahedeen resistance (1978 – 1992) the Badakshan province was ruled largely by local military leaders, financed by the increase in opium production during the jihad period (Giustozzi and Orsini 4). The following years saw a power struggle between two Jami’at figure-heads; Ahmad Shah and Professor Rabbani, a situation mirroring pre-war politics. This relationship led to a ‘balance of power’, which maintained peace and security through completely ineffective administration and lack of action, whilst both leaders redistributed land and wealth to their cronies (Giustozzi and Orsini 6). After the death of his previous favourite, military commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2001, President Karzai reluctantly maintained Rabbani, in return for support in elections, but under his rule, military leaders continued to reap the benefits of the opium trade (Giustozzi and Orsini 9). In order to gain more control of the region, Karzai was moved, in 2005, to start replacing local powers with his own men and chose to support Zalmay Mujaddidi, from the Badakshan region. Through his favoured position as the Chairman of the Internal Security Commission, Mujaddidi chose all 27 heads of department in Fayzabad (Giustozzi and Orsini 6). He furthermore, reinstated officers accused of drug
smuggling, and later managed to take over the majority of the drug trade (Giustozzi and Orsini 11, 13). The chief of the highway police in Badakhshan, Col. Jaweed was arrested for carrying 26kg of opium in 2009, and due to his political ties (his uncle is a powerful member of
with the corrupt and inefficient politics led to unrest and insurgency, meaning a decline in stability and security in the region (Giustozzi and Orsini 14).
As mentioned in the previous chapter, in cases of CIA assassinations of political figures, in order to ensure their assets are in powerful positions (Aikins 9). This series of power struggles, combined with corruption and foreign interference in politics has meant the political institutions are largely inefficient, and tailored to US interests, which also profit the elites. The inefficiencies meant that from 2001 to 2008, official taxes were not collected in the province, and governmental investments were not made in public services (civil society and international aid projects
provided the few public series in the region). In contrast, taxes from producing opium, though were collected, benefiting the local commanders involved in the opium trade. These, in turn, have encouraged farmers in the province to grow poppies (Goodhand, "Holy War" 10).
Eradication throughout Afghanistan has been selective, reflecting the political ties of the landowners (Goodhand, "Corrupting or Consolidating" 417), and this holds in Badakhshan, where local power holders dictate the areas for eradication in line with their political alliances (Feinstein 2). Despite apparently high eradication figures in the Badakhshan Province (an increase of 57%, the largest anywhere in Afghanistan), land being cultivated by poppies has increased (by 23%) and many farers have been producing similar or more poppies (Feinstein 1).
Economic Changes
Many opium farmers in the Badakshan Province do so in order to make enough money to survive and feed their families (Goodhand, "Holy War" 10). The region has experienced a
reduction in the farming of livestock, and state subsidies for wheat were removed after the
collapse of the Najibullah government in 1992 (Goodhand, "Holy War" 10). Years of conflict and civil war in the region has also destroyed much of the infrastructure, meaning even if alternative
crops are grown, they could not be transported to a point of sale (Goodhand, "Holy War" 6). Goodhand suggests the CIA money which was pumped into Afghanistan was converted into loans to give farmers ("Corrupting or Consolidating" 409). Opium, on the other hand can be sold straight from the farm, and makes a much larger profit. Farm-gate prices of opium are can be 100 times what could be fetched for other crops, for example wheat (Goodhand, "Holy War" 7).
Opium traffickers and drug-lords offer saalam loans to farmers, which cover the initial costs of buying fields or investing in seeds and water.9 This is then expected to be paid back in opium, during the harvest season, when the prices are highest (Ahmadzai and Kuonqui 47) Aside from creating a debt cycle, if farmers are unable to repay the amount of opium required, due to eradication or a bad season, the cash equivalent must be paid, which can come from selling land or alternatively, from the money set aside by farmers for the ‘bride price’ of their daughter (Ahmadzai and Kuonqui 47). If the farmer cannot pay, he may be forced into ‘selling’ his daughter to the creditor, therefore sacrificing her into a life as a wife or slave of a drug trafficker (Ahmadzai and Kuonqui 49). The presence of the saalam loans system challenges traditional social political structures as elders no longer involved in marriage or trade negotiations whilst forcing farmers into debts, they may not make, due to unforeseeable factors, such as eradication or a bad weather (Ahmadzai and Kuonqui 55).
As the growth and sale of opium is illegal in Afghanistan, transactions are not recorded or taxed and therefore the entire economy is informal. The effects of informal economies are
discussed by Goodhand, including corruption, re-enforcement of inequality and lack of official taxation ("Corrupting or Consolidating" 412). The profits from opium account for a sizable percentage of the economy of the Badakshan Province and if the trade was taxed this money could go towards infrastructure or social services. Even informal taxes, both zakat and ushr from
communities, especially those producing opium, go towards warlords and drug traffickers, who often do not distribute the money to the poor, meaning the only infrastructure in place to support those in need is commandeered by those involved in the opium trade (Goodhand, "Holy War" 8). Or, as few governmental social services are provided, NGOs offer the majority of the basic facilities available ("Badakhshan Provincial Profile" 14). The profits gained by those producing opium and the drug traffickers and drug lords has meant a re-organization of economic power structures by the rise of the ‘new rich’ in the Badakshan Province, who challenge the traditional power structures (Goodhand, "Holy War" 12).
Social Changes
A side effect of the presence of opium in Afghanistan, is its increasing availability on the market is the growing number of addicts. According to Vogt, 8% of 15 to 64 year old Afghans are now addicted to opium; Khoshnood record a 200% increase in the number of people injecting drugs in Afghanistan in just one month (163S).10 Farmers and workers producing opium have been known to become addicted, through licking the knife they use to score poppies (Starkey). Due to the ease of purchasing opium and lack of readily available alternative, opium is used as a painkiller, even for children, where it can turn both into a life long addiction and cause
respiratory problems. Addicts are generally either a drain on their families, as in most cases they cannot work, or they turn to stealing or begging to fund their next ‘hit’. Both men and women who become addicted may turn to prostitution to finance purchasing opium, which combined with needle sharing, has the potential to lead to the rapid spread of HIV. Although most estimates place the number of those infected with HIV as comparatively low, the situation has the potential to explode, as the amount of people using opium and heroin is increasing rapidly (Khoshnood
163S). Lack of education and public health services contribute the problem. There are 40 residential addiction treatment centres throughout Afghanistan, although these face a lack of beds, equipment and staff (“Media Factsheet” 1). Although some areas of Badakshan have high levels of drug dependency (Goodhand, "Holy War" 9), the province has a single ‘drop in’ clinic, which is inaccessible for the majority of the population (“Media Factsheet” 3), therefore many addicts never receive treatment.
Aside from the income inequalities caused by the opium trade, Goodhand notes that since the reliance on opium production, there has been a decrease in community land and the
traditional practice of hashar (voluntary communal labour), as people are often too poor, or have become accustomed to being paid ("Holy War" 14). Part of the paid labour, though is women, whom both work on opium fields and own land which is used to grow opium (Goodhand "Holy War" 15). Although the emancipation of women through working in opium seems an unlikely route, their presence in the field may challenge the traditional gender structures in Afghan society, and lead to presence in other working places. Goodhand also notes a change in respect within societal relations, especially with regards to how the young treat the and in relationships between father and sons (13). Traditionally in Afghan societies, the young show respect for the elder and sons are likely to follow in the footsteps of their father’s career. Yet this is now changing, with the growth of the opium economy, drug lords and corrupt leaders, youth is adopting the westernised, dominant ideology of the US, that sons are not culturally obliged to follow their fathers career choices.
Badakhshan in Transition
To conclude, the province of Badakhshan has been impacted both by the constant warfare which Northern Afghanistan has experienced; first the invasion of the Soviet Union and
mujahedeen resistance, the US backed Northern Alliance and the consequent growth of the opium economy. These events have redistributed power within the region, and latterly
consolidated the power of landowners. Through taxing opium production, military commanders, whom hold the most power the in the region, have become aligned with opium producers and drug traffickers and a ‘new rich’ class has been formed in the region. The binds equate to corruption of politics and economics, shown by selective eradication and the way political positions are distributed. This in turn maintains inequality between those in power and their cronies producing opium, and those whom hold neither power, nor land. Goodhand, does note the resilience of traditional institutions from political changes, where positions do not rely on money or politics, they are harder to infiltrate, and civil society remains relatively unchanged (Goodhand, "Holy War" 12-13). The strength of the education system in the Badakhshan province is an example of civil society prospering, where both the economy and politics are failing the region.
In the theory of hegemony, Gramsci explains how social, political and economical forces are intertwined (Morton 94). In order to maintain the hegemony, peripheral societies may be re-structured by the hegemonic power to benefit its own agenda, preferably through cooperation, or if the states ruling apparatus refuses to cooperate, coercion is used. Afghanistan had not accepted the neo-liberal ideology of the hegemony and must therefore was coerced by American
intervention. Since Afghanistan has a history of resisting forces from Europe and North America, and as aid packages were not sufficient to control the country from moving towards communism, the US designed an assault which was not only economic and political, but also ideological. It has widely been recognized that in creating the mujahedeen and funding, training and arming the politicization of Islam, the US helped build an ideology which had global repercussions,
including the attacks on 11th September, and the creation of the Islamic State. What happened in Afghanistan, as shown by the case study of the Badakshan Province, was a passive revolution, where a change in political circumstances is top down, as opposed to a revolutionary movement for the people. The result of this in the Badakshan Province is a political economy centred on the growth of poppies, and its corresponding ‘new rich’ class, and corrupt officials combined with changes in social structures which are beginning to replicate western ideologies.
In the World Systems theory, surplus is channelled from the periphery to the core, gaining value on the way, although only a small margin of the profits reach the producers on the
periphery. This is certainly the case with opium production in Afghanistan. Its farm gate price is marginal compared to what is paid for processed opium or refined heroin (Goodhand,
"Corrupting or Consolidating" 410). Those who profit from the drugs trade internationally are interested in maintaining its existence. But that has been done substantially by US interventions, either covertly, through the CIA as in the case of its funding Afghan drug lords, or overtly, as is the case with the US invasion of Afghanistan.
The opium trade has not only effected the people of Afghanistan, opium is transported overland to Iran, through the ‘Eastern route’, and Iran consumes the largest amount of opium globally (42% of the opium not converted into heroin) (UNODC 20).
Conclusion
“I will never bargain with drug dealers on US or foreign soil” - George Bush (qtd. in Cockburn and St Clair 266).
“In the world hegemonic model, hegemony is more intense and consistent at the core and more laden with contradictions at the periphery” (Cox, Production, Power, and World Order 137).
In this thesis, I have discussed the controversy of US actions. Whilst declaring a ‘war on drugs’, they have supported the international drugs trade through both covert and overt alliances. In Afghanistan, first through the support of the mujahedeen and later through the support of the Northern Alliance, both groups featured leaders involved in opium production and the trafficking of heroin, who were independently paid by the CIA. The presence of the opium trade in
Afghanistan has changed the social, political and economic structures of communities.
Corruption is tied to the drug trade, and currently seems to affects all levels of political power. Many farmers in the Badakshan province grow poppies, due to its viability among the limited options they face. Yet poppy production often relies on loans, which are very troublesome in bad seasons, or when hit by eradication schemes; penalties include loss of land, savings, or famers having to ‘marry’ their daughters to drug traffickers. Afghanistan currently has more opium and heroin addicts than ever before, and treatment facilities are sparse and generally considered ineffective. Furthermore, social structures are changing towards replicating US ideologies, rather than the traditional relations.
In Afghanistan, two American strategies were played out; the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terror’. Both these wars were declared on concepts of risks, rather than definitive peoples or states, which gave US forces the freedom to choose its targets and techniques, whilst also making
significant changes domestically, such as the ‘anti-terrorism’ laws and the incarceration of millions of Americans.11 At the beginning of the thesis I questioned why the US rhetorically waged a ‘war on drugs’, whilst apparently secretly supporting the drug trade. Blumenson and Nilsen, suggest that drug laws in the US have led to racial discrimination, high numbers of incarceration, and maintains a permanent underclass (81-82). In Afghanistan, the opium trade is intrinsically linked to power structures, many of which, in turn are linked to American powers or funding. Those whom ultimate benefit from the sale of heroin, in the US and in Europe and their linkages is not widely researched or discussed in academia, but the above conclusions, as also discussed by Scott and Chomsky, suggest they may be closely affiliated with decision makers in the United States government. Cockburn and St Clair describe how the then Vice President Bush was head of National Narcotics Border Interdiction system, and encouraged CIA intervention in drug trades (265). Bush praised Pakistani president Zia for their efforts in the war on drugs, although Zia was connected with several drugs traffickers (Cockburn and St Clair 266-268). Scott heavily implies that President Obama had knowledge of CIA practices in Afghanistan ("Americas War Machine "217-237). The fact that several US presidents have come and gone, whilst CIA interventions have continued suggests it is not only the presidents, or members of the CIA who are involved but a more extensive force. Scott (American War Machine 229) and Choussudovsky ("The Spoils of War"), describe how US and international banks benefit from the illegal trade of narcotics, and following this route could shed some light on a series of influential actors.
Possibilities for change lie both with organic intellectuals in the US and within the provinces of Afghanistan, who could challenge the current system. In the case study of the
11 The US now imprison two million people, six times as many as in 1972, and mostly due to drug war that has been
waged over those three decades (Blumenson and Nilsen 61). The majority of US prisons are privately run, which Shapiro discusses, leads to questionable financial incentives to incarcerate people.
Badakshan province, education is its biggest asset, which combined with the resilience of the traditional power structures, could be an opportunity for the province to challenge the hegemonic power of the US backed Afghan government. The question remains, though, what to do with the opium trade and whether the legalisation of drugs, or production for medical purposes would provide a legitimate system and more equality in the process, as suggested by Nadelmann and Spivack.
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