Russia May Confront America in Afghanistan

Reports coming from the Kremlin earlier this week have stated that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered the military to prepare to confront the American military in Afghanistan over the thriving drug trade in Afghanistan. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has said that the Afghan drug trade is the "greatest threat to international peace and security."

The EU Times is reporting that the top intelligence agencies of the West (mainly the CIA) have gained billions of dollars from heroin production in Afghanistan and other parts of the region. Before the invasion of 2001, however, the Taliban had virtually eliminated all of the heroin.

Since the installation of Hamid Karzai as Afghan President the country has seen heroin production increase to levels unheard of in modern times. As a result, tens of thousands of Russian citizens have died due to the fact that the drug is constantly being smuggled into Russia.

Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, said that the flow of opiates from the US occupied parts of the Middle East into Russia was "the second edition of opium wars." He said this in May to the Russian parliament.

“I can name you a lot of politicians in Russia who said that the Americans specially arranged the situation in Afghanistan so that we would receive a lot of drugs, and this is the real aim of their occupation,” said Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament.

German President Horst Koehler said last month that the war in Afghanistan was securing free trade routes for the West and had nothing to do with terrorism. He was forced to resign for saying this.

Head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said that he has evidence showing that the proceeds from organized crime were "the only liquid investment capital" to certain banks that were at risk of collapsing last year. He stated that most of the $352 billion in drug profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.