OH THOSE AFGHANS–DEMOCRATIC LEADERS!?
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, GIVING PAUSE TO ALL WHO SEE DEMOCRACY AS FREE FROM THE TAINT OF DRUG-RUNNING. IS THERE A DEMOCRACY IN AFGHANISTAN? H’MM, COME TO THINK OF IT, THE U.S. DID A LOT OF TRADING IN DRUGS WITH ANTICOMMUNIST LEADERS DURING THE COLD WAR…HERE WE ARE AGAIN. OTTAWA, ARE YOU LISTENING?
October 7, 2008
Karzai’s Brother Denies Heroin Link
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
KABUL, Afghanistan — The brother of Afghanistan’s president denied any involvement in the heroin trade at a news conference on Monday, saying accusations linking him to heroin shipments were “baseless” and represented political pressure on the president following his criticism of a recent American airstrike that Afghanistan maintains killed scores of civilians.
The brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was challenging an article in The New York Times on Sunday, which examined the concerns of top American officials in Kabul and in Washington that he might be involved in heroin shipments, and that in any case, widespread perceptions that President Hamid Karzai might be protecting him are damaging the government’s credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress it.
In the article, both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.
In a telephone interview after the news conference on Monday, Ahmed Wali Karzai addressed a 2004 episode described in the article, in which Afghan security forces found a cache of heroin in a tractor-trailer in Kandahar but, according to notes taken by American investigators, were told to release the drugs and the vehicle by a presidential aide. He said that some of the security forces, including the Kandahar police commander, Habibullah Jan, were political opponents of President Karzai and were disgruntled over programs that cost them arms and influence.
Habibullah Jan was shot dead by two gunmen in July in Kandahar.
President Karzai has increased his criticism of foreign forces in Afghanistan as civilian casualties have mounted in operations meant to strike at insurgents.
The United States military is investigating an assertion by villagers in western Afghanistan that some 90 people, most of them children, died in a missile attack on Aug. 22. The Afghan government and a United Nations investigation have backed that assertion, but American officers have said that fewer than 10 civilians were killed in the strike.
“Whenever anything happen between the international community and President Karzai, there has been an article about me,” Mr. Karzai said at the news conference, “as if I am a boxing bag for their training.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company