Drugs, Thugs, and Cash

Over 90% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, and 60% of Afghanistan's GDP comes from poppy trade. With nearly 70,000 American troops set to be in Afghanistan by the summer, most in the poppy-infested south and east of the country, the linkages between drugs and militant financing are more in the spotlight than ever. Emmy-nominated former Associated Press and ABC News reporter Gretchen Peters spent five years traveling to the deepest reaches of the treacherous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to research her "stunning" new book, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Join us as Peters and Douglas Farah, author of a critically acclaimed book on the international weapons trade, Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible, discuss the region's narcotics trade, precariously placed at ground zero in the "war on terror", and the relationship between Afghan drugs, thugs, and money.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Poppy
• Heroin
• Opium
• Farming
• Afghanistan
• Taliban
• Money
• Laundering
• Economy

[injimbwoo]

"Terrorists" are the greatest threat to us by forcing us to face our ideals and leadership as the inheritors of the Enlightenment. We cannot "defeat" one man with an RPG. They pop up like poppies. We CAN push push push to make-manifest our ideals, and they will speak louder than our Predators, B-52's and the Dick chenneys of the world. If we succumb to barbarism, then, Bin Laden is a strategic genius! But Ms. Peters, your 9 point prescription is truly ambitious and daunting. Inshallah.

[hartejoseph]

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[jo232409]

That was a great talk. I love how the drug legalization bit evolved into, "Yeah, okay, we need reform as an ultimate solution."

Fascinating, fresh information about Afghanistan. Thanks New America!