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Read Cockburn and St. Clair's Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power.


CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9/11 and the War on Afghanistan

New Print Edition of CounterPunch Published January 21: the Enron Follies: buying a longterm lease on the White House; how Enron CEO lamented "Unfortunately, workers aren't slaves"; George Bush crony now Pakistan lobbyist; the Rise and Fall of Death Row Records; Cuba Travel Advisery; Black Hawk Bilge Subscribe Now!

January 29, 2002

Alexander Cockburn
The Birds of Kandahar

January 28, 2002

Larry Chin
Brosnahan for the Defense

Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny of the Bottom Line

George E. Curry
Civil Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"

Sen. Russ Feingold
Campaign Finance Reform?
Think Enron

John Chuckman
Liberal? Media?

January 27, 2002

Mokhiber and Weissman
Enron's Drip, Drip, Drip

Tom Turnipseed
MLK Jr.'s Dream Perverted

January 26, 2002

Norman Madarsz
Adieu, Bourdieu

January 25, 2002

National Lawyers Guild
Know Your Rights

Alexander Cockburn
You Call This Terrorism?

CounterPunch Wire
Cal Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown

Tariq Ali
Kashmir, Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky

Nadine Strossen
Protecting MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11

January 24, 2002

Robert Fisk
Turkey Targets Chomsky

Dean Baker
Lying on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many

David Vest
Idiot Wind

January 23, 2002

Terry Waite
Guantanamo Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?

Molly Secours
The Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty

Robert Jensen
Speak Out, Get Slimed

January 22, 2002

Brendan Cooney
Moby-Dick and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden

Rick Giombetti
Progressive Pols for Enron?

Judith Resnik
Invading the Courts?

Kevin Alexander Gray
The Crisis in Black Leadership

January 21, 2002

Marjorie Cohn
Will Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?

Ahmad Faruqui
MLK Jr. and the Palestinians

January 19. 2002

Jordan Green
Enron Stole Our Future

January 18, 2002

Tom Turnipseed
The Enron Model

Walt Brasch
Enron at the White House

CounterPunch Wire
Human Rights Group Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs

January 17, 2002

Gideon Levy
Bulldozing Rafah

Uri Avnery
That Weapons Shipment

January 16, 2002

John Chuckman
The Angel and the Pretzel

Lawrence McGuire
Subverting the
Geneva Convention

Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq

January 15, 2002

George Monbiot
Greenpeace, Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal

Jack McCarthy
Follow the Pretzel

William Blum
Atta and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story

Edward Said
Emerging Alternatives
in Palestine

January 14, 2002

David Vest
Open Bag. Eat Pretzels.

Patrick Cockburn
Collapse of Georgia
Ignored by the World

Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It

January 13, 2002

C.G. Estabrook
Why We Kill People

January 12, 2002

Cockburn/St. Clair
Forbidden Truths

January 11, 2002

Lee Balllinger/Dave Marsh
Neil Young's Duet with Ashcroft

January 10, 2002

Tom Turnipseed
Bush, Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban

St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace to Greenwash?

Hans von Sponek
Iraq: Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?

Jim Lobe
Israeli Human Rights Group Assails Army

Marina Mayakova
Russia's Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL

January 9, 2002

David Vest
The Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent

ND Jayaprakash
Winnable Nuclear War?

Rafiq Kathwari
Kashmir Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire

January 8, 2002

Prudence Crowther
Sting Like a B-52

Nelson Valdés
Al-Qaeda at Guantanamo Bay

John Chuckman
Dark Tales from the
Ministry of Truth

Richard Corn-Revere
Do We Fear Freedom?

Joan Hoff
The Nixon You Haven't Heard

January 7, 2002

Lawrence McGuire
Confusing Economic Tales About Argentina

Wael Masri
They Are Taking
Our Rights Away

Philip Farruggio
Better Medicine


A Photographic Journal of Life in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann

Resources:
100s of Links About 9/11


CounterPunch:
Complete Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath


Five Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond

By Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula

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Published Oct. 15, 2001

8-Page Special Issue

War Diary

CIA's Assassination Plan a History of Torture in US Prisons

bin Laden and Bush Business Connections

Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype of US Food Bombs

Peter Linebaugh on Pakistan

Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher

Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em


Search CounterPunch

Read Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden

Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the Press

by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff

The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid

Edited by Roane Carey

A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine

Al Gore:
A User's Manual
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January 29, 2002

Drug Control Agency in Kabul is Evicted

By Patrick Cockburn
in Kabul

Despite promises to crack down on the drugs trade, the new Afghan government has evicted the main drug control agency from its headquarters in Kabul and taken its vehicles.

"They literally threw us into the street," said Mir Najibullah Shams, the Secretary-General of the State High Commission for Drug Control. "I don't have a phone to call up commanders in the provinces. They didn't even leave us with a bicycle."

The contempt with which the new Afghan administration has treated its main drugs agency bodes ill for any attempt to curtail opium and heroin production in Afghanistan. This is despite promises by the new administration at the summit on aid to Afghanistan in Tokyo this week that it would try to reduce the flow of narcotics out of the country in return for $4.5bn (£3.2bn) from donors.

Afghanistan is the world's largest exporter of heroin and provides about 80 per cent of Western Europe's supply and an even higher proportion of heroin used in Russia and Central Asia. Between a third and a half of the Afghan population is believed by experts to be involved in growing, producing or trafficking in narcotics.

Mr Shams, who has taken refuge in a room in the Afghan Foreign Ministry, showed a number of maps illustrating the huge increase in the mid-nineties in the number of provinces growing opium poppies. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, had successfully banned the planting of poppies in 1999, but the collapse of central government control in much of Afghanistan in the last two months may mean that farmers will once again produce opium.

The former headquarters of the High Commission for Drug Control is a substantial three-storey building which has been taken over by a newspaper called Payam-I-Mujaihid which supports the government. Mr Shams admits that its 300 employees were never able to do very much about narcotics because "until you solve the problems of the Afghan farmers they will produce drugs. What do you expect them to do when they are dressed in rags and their children have nothing to eat?"