Putin Slams NATO-Led Forces On Afghan Drug Trade

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CVX
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Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:00 pm

Putin Slams NATO-Led Forces On Afghan Drug Trade

Post by CVX »

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused foreign forces in Afghanistan of letting the drugs trade run out of control -- one week after the United States itself rebuked Afghanistan for the booming business.



"They're doing almost nothing, not even just to reduce the drugs problem," Interfax news agency quoted Putin as telling Viktor Cherkesov, head of Russia's drugs control agency.



With no troops in Afghanistan, Russia tries to stem the flow of illegal drugs by catching traffickers as they leave Afghanistan and enter ex-Soviet Tajikistan across a border almost entirely policed by Russian border guards.



International peacekeepers, now under NATO leadership, have been in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion of late 2001.



But critics have said the peacekeeping mission is too small -- covering little of the country outside Kabul -- and the U.S. government has further undermined it by starting a costly war in Iraq before securing peace in Afghanistan.



"They should get more involved and not just watch as caravans roam all over Afghanistan, then through the (former Soviet Union) to the West," Putin said.



Tajikistan will take the mountainous border under its full control by 2006 despite fears that after being ravaged by a 1992-97 civil war it can't afford the necessary equipment.



Last month Russian troops seized one tonne of Afghan heroin. But the United Nations says many times that amount hit Europe's streets last year -- 90 percent from Afghanistan.



Putin said the states involved in Afghanistan were blind to the real issue.



"They should understand the threat posed by Afghan drugs and not try to hide it from the public," he said, calling for far greater international cooperation.



U.S. President George W. Bush, campaigning for reelection, touts democratic changes in Afghanistan as a sign of progress in the war on terrorism, and told a rally last week that Afghans -- also preparing for a presidential election -- were "now free".



But a White House report published the same day put the onus for dealing with drugs on the Afghan government itself.
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capt_buzzard
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Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 12:00 pm

Putin Slams NATO-Led Forces On Afghan Drug Trade

Post by capt_buzzard »

I hope that President G.W. Bush cleans up the drugs trade on the cities and towns of America.
kensloft
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Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:37 am

Putin Slams NATO-Led Forces On Afghan Drug Trade

Post by kensloft »

Heroin is ravaging many countries. Both in the East and the West. It is the difference between living and living in complete poverty in different regions of the world. The numbers that are coming up with Putin are relatively small in the scale of things.

It is a scary drug that can give you a lifelong addiction. This is not to say that it is all bad. As has been pointed out, people can conduct ordinary lives under its influence. That's what makes it scary.

When you have people controlling the supply, then you have people that are essentially your slave masters. If the police forces and the users focussed on eliminating the middlemen by way of going to the source then you would have all the tons of money that go into law enforcement and imprisonment being redirected into solving and taking care of the real problems that beset American life.

The recidivistic nature of the lives of the heroin junkie could be relegated to the dust heap of time and more progresss could be made with the greater amounts of funds that would be available for the social inequalities that beset America. Poverty could be slashed, education could be more readily available to those that can't access it and any other number of things that could help people to grow in spirit and prosperity.

I am by no means saying that heroin should be legalized or decriminalized. All I am saying is that we have to step back and see what best helps people to grow.

Better paying the farmers for their wares than having organized crime reap the profits which they will then invest in their legitimate enterprises. Hit 'em where it hurts. In the bank accounts.

The users alone could probably buy the crops from the farmers which would in turn give the farmers a decent wage from their soils. That would leave all those dollars that are being wasted in trying to defeat this scourge being put into more beneficial programs to help society.

It is time to stop the growth industries of crime and punishment. We need our police to focus on the real problems of taking care of the real criminals, and they are the ones that are behind controlling these substances. Now that they are realizing the absurdity and cruelty of laws such as were the Rockefeller anti-Drug laws are now seen for what they are... a ruse that hides the real criminals and criminalizes the victims.
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