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November 6, 2001
Evan Ravitz
Stop the War
Through
Direct Democracy
Steve
Perry
Hunger
in Afghanistan
November 5, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
Living
in the Minefields
David Price
Terror
and Indigenous People
November 3, 2001
Declan McCullagh
Nancy Oden Interview
Daniel
Wolff
The
Memphis Blues Again
Mark Weisbrot
War on Civilians
Dave Marsh
How
the RIAA (and the FBI)
Cheat Musicians
Robert Jensen
Speaking
Out Against
War on Campus
November 2, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Green
Party Leader Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented from Boarding
Any Plane
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
October 31, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
Terrorize
the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
Chris Clarke
Thank God
for Berkeley
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
October 30, 2001
Rep. Ron Paul
War on Terror
Bad as War on Drugs
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flying
Blind:
The Predator's Problem
Ali Abunimah
Dear Colin
Powell
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The Memphis Blues Again:
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Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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A Pocket Guide to
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November
6, 2001
Underwriting the Taliban
By Rep. Ron Paul
Even before September 11th, most Americans were
well aware of the hostility that many Middle Eastern nations
have for the U.S. Our experiences with Iran, Libya, Iraq, and
now Afghanistan have understandably soured many Americans on
the entire region. Indeed, the majority of anti-American sentiment
in the post-Cold War era originates in the Middle East. What
many Americans don't realize, however, is the extent to which
their own foreign aid tax dollars are spent funding our current
and future enemies in the region.
We should recognize that American tax
dollars helped to create the very Taliban government that now
wants to destroy us. In the late 1970s and early 80s, the CIA
was very involved in the training and funding of various fundamentalist
Islamic groups in Afghanistan, some of which later became today's
brutal Taliban government. In fact, the U.S. government admits
to giving the groups at least 6 billion dollars in military aid
and weaponry, a staggering sum that would be even larger in today's
dollars.
Bin Laden himself received training and
weapons from the CIA, and that agency's military and financial
assistance helped the Afghan rebels build a set of encampments
around the city of Khost. Tragically, those same camps became
terrorist training facilities for Bin Laden, who uses some of
the same soldiers our military once trained as lieutenants in
his sickening terrorist network. Our heroic pilots are now busy
bombing the same camps we paid to build, all the while threatened
by the same Stinger missiles originally supplied by our CIA.
Once again, the stark result of our foreign aid, however well-intentioned,
was the arming and training of forces that later become our enemy.
Our foolish funding of Afghan terrorists
hardly ended in the 1980s, however. Millions of your tax dollars
continue to pour into Afghanistan even today. Our government
publicly supported the Taliban right up until September 11. Already
in 2001 the U.S. has provided $125 million in so-called humanitarian
aid to the country, making us the world's single largest donor
to Afghanistan. Rest assured the money went straight to the Taliban,
and not to the impoverished, starving residents that make up
most of the population. Do we really expect a government as intolerant
and anti-west as the Taliban to use our foreign aid for humane
purposes? If so, we are incredibly naive; if not, we foolishly
have been seeking to influence a government that regards America
as an enemy.
Incredibly, in May the U.S. announced
that we would reward the Taliban with an additional $43 million
in aid for its actions in banning the cultivation of poppy used
to produce heroin and opium. Taliban rulers had agreed to assist
us in our senseless drug war by declaring opium growing "against
the will of God." They weren't serious, of course. Although
reliable economic data for Afghanistan is nearly impossible to
find (there simply is not much of an economy), the reality is
that opium is far and away the most profitable industry in the
country. The Taliban was hardly prepared to give up virtually
its only source of export revenue, any more than the demand for
opium was suddenly going to disappear. If anything, Afghanistan's
production of opium is growing. Experts estimate it has doubled
since 1999; the relatively small country is now believed to provide
the raw material for fully 75% of the world's heroin. How tragic
that our government was willing to ignore Taliban brutality in
its quest to find "victories in the failed drug war.
U.S. taxpayers have a right to know exactly
what we're getting for our foreign aid dollars. Have we helped
bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan? Have we eased suffering
there? Have we added to stability in the region? Have we earned
the love or respect of the Afghan people? Have we made an ally
of the Taliban government? The answer to all of these entirely
reasonable questions is a resounding NO. Afghanistan is in chaos,
its people starving, and its government is now an outright enemy
of the United States. As we yet again find ourselves at war with
forces we once funded and supported, the wisdom of foreign aid
must be challenged. Peaceful relations and trade with every nation
should be our goals, and the first step in accomplishing both
should be to stop sending taxpayer dollars overseas.
Ron Paul,
M.D., represents the 14th Congressional District of Texas in
the United States House of Representatives.
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