Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Michel Chossudovsky

  • Live 8: Corporate Media Bonanza

    Live 8, “the greatest concert” ever aired live, has been presented to World public opinion as an “awareness campaign” in solidarity with Africa. Its stated objective was to put pressure on the Group of Eight leaders (G8) to increase foreign aid flows and cancel the debt of the World’s poorest countries.

    In the words of its promoter Bob Geldof, Live 8 has provided a “unique opportunity” to save a continent from a humanitarian disaster.

    The Live 8 concerts organized in the eight major industrial countries (as well as in South Africa), however, were not intended to raise money for the World’s poorest countries.

    In fact quite the opposite.

    Live 8 is a multimillion dollar undertaking, which will result in huge profits for its corporate sponsors including AOL Time Warner, the US based media giant, the Ford Motor company, through its Swedish affiliate Volvo and Nokia, the cell phone company, not to mention Britain’s EMI Music Group, which has entered into a highly lucrative arrangement with the Live 8 organizers.

    AOLTime Warner controls the US broadcasting rights which it has licenced to the Walt Disney Company for broadcast TV on ABC and a myriad of affiliated TV and radio stations, including Premiere Radio Networks, XM Satellite Radio and Viacom’s MTV Networks (for cable TV). AOL also holds the exclusive online rights for the event on the internet.

    TV air-time has been auctioned off around the world. Millions of dollars of advertising revenues are expected from the broadcasting of the event, not to mention the repeats, the video-clips, the internet broadcasting and the DVDs, which will be available commercially.

    According to the producers, Live 8 will go down as “the biggest global broadcast in history“. The organizers expect –through TV, radio and the internet– to reach some 5.5 billion people, or 85 per cent of the world’s population. The advertising industry places the number of potential viewers at a conservative two billion, approximately one third of the World’s population.

    By far this is largest media advertising operation in history, which will line the pockets of the promoters, producers, corporate sponsors, not to mention the royalties accruing to the performers and “celebrities”. A small percentage of the proceeds might accrue to charitable organizations involved in developing countries but this is not the stated objective of Live 8.

    The Ford Motor Company has used the event to promote its “up-market” Swedish car division Volvo, with advertising spots during the US broadcast.

    Volvo has also provided for artist transportation to and from the London and Philadelphia concerts as well as a VIP entertainment suite at the Philadelphia concert. (See www.adage.com/news, June 30, 2005).

    “The event, said company spokesman Soren Johansson, “fits with the DNA of the company” and “appeals to peoples emotions.” One of Volvo’s TV spots features ’Volvo for Life” award-winner Rosamond Carr, “who operates an orphanage in Rwanda, and two others talking about Volvos values and their reasons for Live 8 involvement.” (Ibid)

    Moreover, Vonage, the US based phone company is said to have spent “’six figures’ to become a primary sponsor of Premiere Radio Networkscoverage“. And will also run a Live 8 schedule on MTV Networks.

    The EMI Deal

    In a multimillion dollar agreement with the Live 8 organizers, Britain’s EMI Music Group has secured the exclusive rights on the DVDs of the concerts in six of the G8 countries including the US, France, Britain, UK, Italy and Germany:

    “An EMI spokeswoman said that once sales had paid for the advance, Live 8 would pay a ’very generous royalty rate’ to Live 8 on the rest of the sales.”

    In the words, of Bob Geldof, “I hope this will be the biggest-selling DVD of all time.”

    Meanwhile, the event has contributed to boosting stock market values with EMI’s share price triple its 2003 level.

    Distorting the Causes of Global Poverty

    The concerts are totally devoid of political content. They concentrate on simple and misleading clichés.

    They use poverty as a marketing tool and a consumer-advertising gimmick to increase the number of viewers and listeners worldwide.

    Live 8 creates an aura of optimism. It conveys the impression that poverty can be vanquished with the stroke of the pen. All we need is good will. The message is that G8 leaders, together with the World Bank and the IMF, are ultimately committed to poverty alleviation.

    In this regard, the concerts are part of the broader process of media disinformation. They are used as a timely public relations stunt for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the G-8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland. Tony Blair is presented as stepping up his campaign to convince other G8 nations “to take action on poverty“.

    The G8’s Debt Forgiveness Proposal

    Live 8 fails to challenge or comprehend the G8 policy agenda which directly contributes to creating poverty, nor does it question the role of the World Bank, now under the helm of Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative architect of the invasion of Iraq,

    In addressing the issue of debt forgiveness, Live 8 does not even acknowledge the impacts of IMF-World Bank “economic medicine” imposed on the World’s poorest countries on behalf of Western creditors.

    These deadly macro-economic reforms have contributed to the impoverishment of miillions of people. They oblige countries to close down their schools and hospitals, privatize their public services and sell off the most profitable sectors of their national economy to foreign capital. In return, the G8 promises to increase foreign aid and provide token debt relief. These reforms kill and the G8 is not the solution but the cause. Actor Will Smith addressed the crowds at the concert venues “to snap their fingers” as a reminder that every three seconds a child dies in Africa. What he failed to mention is that the main cause of child mortality in Africa are the deadly macroeconomic reforms.

    Bob Geldof sees an increase in foreign aid completely out of context, as a “unique opportunity” to eradicating poverty, when in fact the proposed increase in aid flows by the rich G8 countries will lead to exactly the opposite results.

    A large percentage of the debt of these countries is owed to the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank

    To address this issue, G8 finance ministers had indeed put forth a proposal which consisted in “foregiving” the outstanding debt owed to these three international financial institutions by the 18 highly indebted countries. The debt forgiveness figure mentioned was of the order of 40 billion dollars. Concurrently, there was a vague commitment to eventually increasing foreign aid flows to the 0.7% of GDP target. (http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm050611_dev.htm)

    Where is the hitch behind this seemingly reasonable “debt forgiveness” proposal?

    The IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank, never cancel or forgive outstanding debts.

    Because they do not forgive debts, the G8 has committed itself to reimbursing the multilateral creditors acting on behalf of the World’s poorest countries.

    Where will they get the money?

    For each dollar of “debt cancellation” to the international financial institutions, the G8 will reduce the flow of foreign aid to these countries. In other words, the foreign aid earmarked to finance much needed social programs will now go directly into the coffers of the IMF and the World Bank.

    There is nothing new in this financial mechanism. It has been used time and again since the onslaught of the debt crisis.

    “Social Safety Net” for the IMF and the World Bank

    What we are dealing with is not a debt forgiveness program, but a “reimbursement” process which directly serves the interests of the creditors.

    The deal constitutes a much needed “social safety net” for the multilateral creditors. It ensures a cash flow towards these institutions, while maintaining the World’s poorest countries in the stranglehold of the IMF and the World Bank. It also prevents these countries from declaring default on their external debt.

    President Bush has made it very clear. The money paid to the World Bank on behalf of the countries, will be “taken out of existing aid budgets.”

    The “debt forgiveness” program, even if it is accompanied by an increase in foreign aid commitments, will result in a significant compression of real foreign aid flows to the highly indebted countries.

    The proposed increases in foreign aid commitments are ficticious since the money is intended for the multilateral creditors. And the deal will only be implemented if the indebted countries promise to carry out the usual gamut of “free market” reforms, under IMF/World Bank supervision.

    An added condition emanating directly from the Bush administration pertains to “governance”. It requires these countries to “democratize” on the US model under Western supervision, as well as carry out “free elections” on the example of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Concluding Remarks

    The concerts serve to usefully distract public attention from the US-UK led war on Iraq and the broader relationship between war and global poverty. Not a word is mentioned in the concerts on the fact that George W. Bush and Tony Blair are considered “war criminals” under international law.

    Moreover, Live 8 tends to undermine all forms of meaningful and articulate dissent to the G8 policy agenda. With the exception of the South African venue, which included the appearance of Nelson Mandela, the concerts are devoid of a broader understanding and commitment.

    Live 8 undermines both the anti-globalization and anti-war movements. It diverts public opinion and distracts media attention from the G8 protest movement. It also serves to undermine the articulation of more radical voices against the New World Order.

    More generally, the event instills an atmosphere of ignorance among the millions who listen to the music and who have the feeling of doing something positive and constructive. But none of the core elements needed to understand the causes of global poverty are presented.

    To the Live 8 corporate sponsors, including Bob Geldof, the EMI Group, AOL Time Warner, The Ford Motor Company, Nokia, MTV, the Walt Disney Company, etc. “Put your money where you mouth is.”

    If you are really committed to poverty alleviation, give the entire proceeds of this multimillion dollar media operation, including the revenues generated by the corporate sponsors, TV networks, advertising firms, royalties accruing to celebrities and performers, to the people of Africa. Let them use this money as they see fit, without interference from donors and creditors.

    To the people of Africa. Do not let yourself be deceived by a giant corporate media stunt where poverty is used as a logo, to attract consumers and make money. Default on your debt to the IMF and the World Bank.

    Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World, Second Edition, Global Research, 2003.

  • Who is Osama Bin Laden?

    A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects”. CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning.” Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks “an act of war” and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”. Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at “state sponsorship,” implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, “I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution.”

    Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: “When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them — minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage” — and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts”.

    The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic “Jihad” to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.

    Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an “international terrorist” for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders”. 1

    In 1979 “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2

    With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3

    The Islamic “jihad” was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:

    In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,…[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies — a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, … as well as a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.4 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan’s military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

    Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.5

    Pakistan’s Intelligence Apparatus

    Pakistan’s ISI was used as a “go-between”. The CIA covert support to the “jihad” operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, –i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “jihad”, which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

    In the words of CIA’s Milton Beardman “We didn’t train Arabs”. Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the “Afghan Arabs” had been imparted “with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA” 6

    CIA’s Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): “neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help”. 7

    Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.

    With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a “parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government”. 8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9

    Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

    ‘Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan’s military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia’s ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,’… During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984…. `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.’ Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.10

    The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle

    The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. 11 In this regard, Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979… to 1.2 million by 1985 — a much steeper rise than in any other nation”:12

    CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests … U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.’ In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,’… `I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout…. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.’13

    In the Wake of the Cold War

    In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World’s opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.14

    With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 — coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics– reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.15 Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.

    The ISI’s extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic “jihad” out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” 16

    Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington’s strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.

    Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also “handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions…” 17

    And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

    Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that “half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI” 18

    In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan’s ISI. 19

    In other words, backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.

    No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women’s rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of “the Sharia laws of punishment”.20

    The War in Chechnya

    With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress’s Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in Chechnya “goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war”. 22

    Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington’s perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.

    The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan’s ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:

    [In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.23

    Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) “Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo… through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia” 24

    Basayev’s organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia’s oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania’s collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.

    During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander “Al Khattab” who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev’s return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab’s posting to Chechnya had been “arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya”.26

    Concluding Remarks

    Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI’s “most wanted list” as the World’s foremost terrorist.

    While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America’s war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI –operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has –since the Soviet-Afghan war– supported international terrorism through its covert operations.

    In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad –featured by the Bush Adminstration as “a threat to America”– is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

    In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

    Endnotes

    1. Hugh Davies, International: `Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998. 2.See Fred Halliday, “The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996): 3. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999. 4. Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992. 5. Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995. 6. Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998. 7. Ibid. 8. Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994. 9. Ibid 10. See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995. 11. Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997. 12. Ibid 13. Ibid. 14. Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000. 15. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit. 16. International Press Services, 22 August 1995. 17. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22. 18.Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998) 19. Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996. 20. See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995. 21. Levon Sevunts, Who’s calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23 The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999. 22. Ibid 23. Ibid. 24. See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000. 25. The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000. 26. BBC, 29 September 1999).

    *Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

    Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, September 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the source and the URL are indicated, the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms, including commercial internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca, fax: 1-514-4256224