"NATO chief vows Afghan drug fight will comply with law" by Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune | February 12, 2009
BERLIN - NATO will conform with international law when it proceeds with new measures to kill drug traffickers in Afghanistan and bomb drug-processing laboratories to deprive the Taliban of its main financing, the head of the alliance said yesterday.
By now, the whole world knows those dirty, rotten, pious Taliban had nearly eliminated opium production in 2001. That was an ancillary reason for invading Afghanistan: get that drug trade flowing again (with the organized crime aspect tracing back to governments and crime syndicates in Israel and the United States).
Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in an interview that "a number of buffers and filters" had been put in place to safeguard the legality of combating what he termed the nexus between the insurgency and narcotics.
"It is according to international law," he said. "And if nations at a certain stage think that they would rather not participate, they will not be forced to participate."
Like they give a crap when they are wasting civilians.
Two weeks ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was embroiled in controversy after General John Craddock, the NATO commander who is also chief of US forces in Europe, said troops in Afghanistan would fire on individuals responsible for supplying heroin-refining laboratories with opium without need for evidence.
We do that now.
In a letter to General Egon Ramms, a German who heads the NATO command center responsible for Afghanistan, Craddock said that "it was no longer necessary to produce intelligence or other evidence that each particular drug trafficker . . . in Afghanistan meets the criteria of being a military objective."
It hasn't been! Ask Saddam Hussei.... , never mind.
Ramms questioned the legality of the proposal, warning that it would violate international law and rules governing armed conflict. Ramms's letter was leaked, provoking a debate within NATO about the conditions and circumstances under which troops could attack drug laboratories.
Like they ever gave a shit!
General David McKiernen, US commander of the 55,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan, also objected to the proposal.....
Of course! He's one of the prime protectors!
