5-12-06 What About Afghanistan - part 2
Back in January, I talked about the opium crop in Afghanistan and how it was a glowing demonstration of the concept of "free markets" and, therefore, an embarassment to the PR machinery in our government. After all, we are not only fighting the so-called "Global War On Terror," but we have to remember that we're also fighting the so-called "War On Drugs," too.
Under the Taliban, the single biggest provider of the world's heroin sank to insignificance. Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, did not significantly contribute to the so-called "drug problem". But after the country was liberated by the US, the following year Afghanistan magically returned to the world stage as the number one producer of opium, and has been back in business ever since. This year it's another record crop.
This year, however, there's a new spin developing...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article363606.ece
...claiming that the Taliban will be making lots of money off this crop.
Until this story, I would have easily been tempted to metaphorically state something like, "...that's about as unlikely as the Taliban using opium profits to finance their insurgency in Afghanistan." But now it would have to be something more like, "...that's about as unlikely as strip clubs in Iran," since the orwellian spin (from the Independant artiicle) on the opium crop has been hijacked.
It isn't so much that I don't believe the Taliban in southern Afghanistan would extort payoffs from the opium farmers. After all, they're no longer in control of that country and it's believable that they'd do whatever's necessary to their ends, which is just disruptive activity at this point. It's the spin on this alleged development that's got me going here.
It's the players in this orwellian PR game that make me want to puke.
Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden... these are PR icons straight out of Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism." Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Under the Taliban, the single biggest provider of the world's heroin sank to insignificance. Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, did not significantly contribute to the so-called "drug problem". But after the country was liberated by the US, the following year Afghanistan magically returned to the world stage as the number one producer of opium, and has been back in business ever since. This year it's another record crop.
This year, however, there's a new spin developing...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article363606.ece
...claiming that the Taliban will be making lots of money off this crop.
Until this story, I would have easily been tempted to metaphorically state something like, "...that's about as unlikely as the Taliban using opium profits to finance their insurgency in Afghanistan." But now it would have to be something more like, "...that's about as unlikely as strip clubs in Iran," since the orwellian spin (from the Independant artiicle) on the opium crop has been hijacked.
It isn't so much that I don't believe the Taliban in southern Afghanistan would extort payoffs from the opium farmers. After all, they're no longer in control of that country and it's believable that they'd do whatever's necessary to their ends, which is just disruptive activity at this point. It's the spin on this alleged development that's got me going here.
It's the players in this orwellian PR game that make me want to puke.
Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden... these are PR icons straight out of Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism." Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
posted by Jeff Barnard at 4:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home