We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

What the CIA’s cash has bought for Afghanistan

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site

This reminds me of reports several years ago about pallets of US dollars being shipped into Iraq, although in that case the money seemed to just disappear. This appears to be the method of choice for agents of the Empire to recruit and keep local puppets in loyal service to the Empire. The puppet this time is Karzai whose country now leads the world in opium production. The Empire's enemy in Afghanistan, the Taliban, had successfully outlawed its production before we invaded that country. The "War on Drugs" is like the "War on Terror"--a public relations gimmick to justify more expenditures for weapons, wars, police forces, and surveillance on citizens.
As the revelations about suitcases stuffed with American dollars make clear, the US has invested heavily in “human capital to lead the country’s institutions” and without a doubt has created an “enabling environment” for a collection of CIA stooges, warlords, drug traffickers and murderers to pillage Afghanistan and terrorize its people, while filling their bank accounts with money from Washington.