Former Blackwater gets rich as Afghan drug production hits record high

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sigmond

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Opium poppy cultivation is up in Afghanistan despite the infamous mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater being paid $569m by the Pentagon to stop it

In a war full of failures, the US counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan stands out: opiate production has climbed steadily over recent years to reach record-high levels last year.

Yet there is a clear winner in the anti-drug effort – not the Afghan people, but the infamous mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater.
Statistics released on Tuesday reveal that the rebranded private security firm, known since 2011 as Academi, reaped over half a billion dollars from the futile Defense Department push to eradicate Afghan narcotics, some 32% of the $1.8bn in contracting money the Pentagon has devoted to the job since 2002.
The company is by far the biggest beneficiary of counternarcotics largesse in Afghanistan. Its closest competition, the defense giant Northrop Grumman, claimed $250m.
According to the US inspector general for Afghanistan “reconstruction”, the $569m Academi got from US taxpayers paid for “training, equipment, and logistical support” to Afghan forces conducting counternarcotics, such as “the Afghan National Interdiction Unit, the Ministry of Interior, and the Afghan Border Police”.

Far from eradicating the deep-rooted opiate trade, US counternarcotics efforts have proven useless, according to a series of recent official inquiries. Other aspects of the billions that the US has poured into Afghanistan over the last 13 years of war have even contributed to the opium boom.
In December, the United Nations reported a 60% growth in Afghan land used for opium poppy cultivation since 2011, up to 209,000 hectares. The estimated $3bn value of Afghan heroin and morphine represents some 15% of Afghan GDP.



continued @
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/blackwater-gets-rich-afghanistan-drug-production
 
Statistics released on Tuesday reveal that the rebranded private security firm, known since 2011 as Academi, reaped over half a billion dollars from the futile Defense Department push to eradicate Afghan narcotics, some 32% of the $1.8bn in contracting money the Pentagon has devoted to the job since 2002.
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Making tons of money to utterly fail at reaching the desired result or even anything positive.

This is really so common a theme with the drug war that it should be its motto.

Can't believe how much taxpayer money is just ripped off with scams around the war in Afghanistan.
 
Anyone that wants to just print money, well steal our tax money in fact, just needs to join the War on Drugs. You produce no results and then your argument can be "well things would have been worse if we weren't there" and everyone shrugs and moves along. It's quite possibly the perfect racket.
 
so the u.s. is spending almost 10% of the afghan gdp to eradicate opium cultivation with the effects of record levels of opiates landing in illicit distribution channels? wikipedia tells us that opium cultivation makes up about 11% of the afghan gdp. why don't they just use the money to buy the opium instead?
 
we forget its not the outcome the government want drug eradication they make to much money from it and everyone knows the two best ways to make money are to start wars and control as much of population as you can
 
mister said:
Blackwater also enjoy shooting unarmed civilians.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7sJitp1ZUk

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/u...agues-in-case-of-2007-iraq-killings.html?_r=0
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BAGHDAD — Ali Khalaf, a traffic police officer, stood in busy Nisour Square on Tuesday, waving the cars by, and pointed.“It was there,” he said, “where people were dying and bleeding without reason. Blackwater vehicles were there, and its soldiers were shooting at people without pity.”
He added, “It was as if I was watching a horror movie.”

Mr. Khalaf, 42, was a witness to the killings of 17 Iraqis in the square, almost eight years ago, by guards for the private security company Blackwater, who were under contract with the State Department. The F.B.I. found that 14 of the killings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules for contractors, and on Monday, four of the guards were sentenced to long prison terms — one of them for life, the others for 30 years — by a federal judge in Washington. The sentencing afforded Mr. Khalaf and other Iraqis who were traumatized by the deadly episode a chance at closure.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/w...illings-give-iraqis-a-measure-of-closure.html

partial justice perhaps..
 
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