The Company You Keep

Drug running brother of Karzai employed by CIA

Ahmed Wali Karzai, right, the brother of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan

"KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opiumtrade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.
The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House."

This Times article goes on to repeat the fallacy that "the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban," as if the occupiers and their Afghan cronies wear the white hats in Afghanistan. Opium production was at zero during Taliban rule and only achieved record numbers after the US invaded and hired thugs like the Karzai brothers.

Drug Enforcement Agency agents have been flooding into Poppystan the past year, probably to better oversee their operations, four of them died in that Monday helicopter crash. By the way, ever wonder why when helicopters go down it's never, ever from enemy fire?

added - America's Drug Crisis, Brought to You by the CIA

"The real story here is that where the US goes, the drug trade soon follows, and the leading role in developing and nurturing that trade appears to be played by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Your tax dollars at work."