Deep Politics Forum

British Troops Allegedly Transporting Heroin on Military Aircraft

September 13th, 2010 My guess is that this particular story is due to upstarts, but keep in mind: Planned British Covert Operation Included Training in “Farming and Irrigation Techniques” for Taliban Fighters.
For the real, state sponsored narcotics trafficking program—tons, not a kilo here, a kilo there—look at things like the U.S. built heroin bridge and Blackwater/Xe’s “aviation support” activities in Africa.
Via: Guardian:
Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers have been involved in heroin trafficking in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said it was aware of “unsubstantiated” claims that troops were buying the drug from dealers and shipping it out of the country in military aircraft. An inquiry is focusing on British and Canadian personnel at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar. Security has been tightened, with additional sniffer dogs being used. Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the world’s opium. Some drug bosses in the country have implicated soldiers in the trade.
Last year the Sunday Times spoke to one dealer who said members of the military were the second largest buyers of heroin after foreign drug lords. The newspaper was told: “The soldiers whose term of duty is about to finish, they give an order to our boss.” A team of detectives from the Ministry of Defence’s special investigations branch is believed to be heading the investigation into the claims.

I also saw that report Ed.

Shades of the CIA's "long silver train" of the Vietnam war era, when bodies of dead GI's were shipped home in silver caskets having had their internal organs eviscerated and replaced with x kilograms of pure No4 Chinese white.

Or am I getting confused with the shipment of Cocaine from South America into US military bases during the Reagan Administration?

Whoops, no. Both happened.

Brief grinding of teeth at Spook Central at those pesky military police interfering with geopolitical grand games.

Still, I'm sure TPTB will be able to find some low level patsy, with real or fabricated links to a competing drugs trafficking operation, to blame it on.

The spooks like nothing better than turning a problem into an opportunity and I'm sure MSM will do its, ahem, patriotic duty and blame it on the officially selected bogeyman.... :ridinghorse:

David Guyatt Wrote:I also saw that report Ed.

Shades of the CIA's "long silver train" of the Vietnam war era, when bodies of dead GI's were shipped home in silver caskets having had their internal organs eviscerated and replaced with x kilograms of pure No4 Chinese white.

Or am I getting confused with the shipment of Cocaine from South America into US military bases during the Reagan Administration?

Whoops, no. Both happened.

Not to be a contrarian, but this just showed up this evening:

Exploding the Myth of Heroin Cadavers



http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.co...-cadavers/

Ed Jewett Wrote:

David Guyatt Wrote:I also saw that report Ed.

Shades of the CIA's "long silver train" of the Vietnam war era, when bodies of dead GI's were shipped home in silver caskets having had their internal organs eviscerated and replaced with x kilograms of pure No4 Chinese white.

Or am I getting confused with the shipment of Cocaine from South America into US military bases during the Reagan Administration?

Whoops, no. Both happened.

Not to be a contrarian, but this just showed up this evening:

Exploding the Myth of Heroin Cadavers



http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.co...-cadavers/

It'll take more than the literary efforts of "seasoned crime reporter and author Ron Chepesiuk" to discredit the history of deep black exploitation of the Golden Triangle by western intelligence agencies, as documented by Prof Alfred McCoy in his classic "The Politics of Heroin in South-East Asia", and subsequent work by such as the Cockburns and Peter Dale-Scott.

The updated version of McCoy's book is now entitled, quite correctly: "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA complicity in the global drug trade".

I note therearenosunglasses neglect to mention who Sgt Ike Atkinson was working for, although the review does throw some mud at "senior Thai officials" and dodgy Thai businessmen.

Fu Machu anyone?

Looks like a classic case of blaming the "gooks" and the mechanics.

Meanwhile, whilst the notion of heroin trafficking via GI cadaver is striking and shocking, the actual mechanism of smack transport is ultimately irrelevant.

Have the author and reviewer even heard of Nugan Hand?

As noted previously both privately and "in thread" elsewhere, I have been trying to get a handle on, and triangulate the validity and nature of, what is behind those sunglasses. I haven't read and don't own either the McCoy or PD Scott books (perhaps they will now move higher on my wish list, though my recent acquisition and waiting list is well over 12 books, topped with finishing Allen Dulles on the surrender in Northern Italy and the just-arrived latest from theologian Griffin on "Cognitive Infiltration"), but now I am a little more clear. Sometimes information like this "myth-buster" is like a clay pigeon; it is telling when it lands intact in a crowd of trap shooters like this one.

I think there is an early copy of Alfred McCoy 's book is in the 'Books' board.
Edit: Found it! http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...heast+Asia