"Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know
KABUL — It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.
Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.
Yeah, THAT'S HOW YOU KEEP LYING WARS GOING.
Related: "Al-CIA-Duh" Invades Afghanistan
Who Are the Terrorists of Pakistan?
“Everyone knows this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking privately....
Yup, EVERYONE EXCEPT the AmeriKan newspaper reader.
Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Taliban Checkbook
"US struggles to halt cash flow to Taliban" by Eric Schmitt, New York Times | October 19, 2009
Not only is the article a deceptive crock of s***, look at the source.
WASHINGTON - The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion, and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing, and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash....
The Taliban are successfully confounding American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.
Btw, WHO are those "Taliban," huh?
So this is just MORE New York Times PROPAGANDA, huh?
In addition to cutting off funding sources, US officials are planning to put more emphasis on efforts to persuade insurgents to disarm or switch sides.
Yeah, except “We don’t pay the insurgents.’’
Unless they are in Iraq, of course.
The
I haven't highlighted any of these passages because isn't it such s***, readers?
Then again, THIS IS WHAT I EXPECT from the New York Times now.
The Taliban’s ability to raise money complicates the Obama administration’s decision to deploy more US troops to Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, whether the deployment of 10,000 Marines over the summer to Helmand Province, the heart of the opium production, will have a sustaining impact on the insurgency’s cash flow. And American officials are debating whether cracking down on the drug trade will anger farmers dependent on it for their livelihood.
But even if the United States and its allies were able to stanch the money flow, it is not clear how much impact it would have. It does not cost much to train, equip, and pay for the insurgency in impoverished Afghanistan - fighters typically earn $200 to $500 a month - and to bribe local Afghan security and government officials.
“Their operations are so inexpensive that they can be continued indefinitely even with locally generated resources such as small businesses and donations,’’ said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service.Yeah, JUST IGNORE all that US TAX MONEY being used to FUND the "enemy," Times!!!!
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Also see: U.S. Talking to Itself in Talks With Taliban
Yeah, they IGNORE THAT, too!!
Hey, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT out of AmeriKa's LEADING WAR TRUMPET?
