Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Raven claims to have telescopic eyes.

(Today his retinas are burning with questions:)

How is it possible that the UN, through the use
of only 10,000 soldiers supposedly scouring the
countryside for Osama Bin Laden, was able
to return Afghanistan to the top of the chart of
opium producing countries in 2002, with the second
highest production in its history—3, 422 tons—
when in 2001 the production under the Talibans
was only 185 tons?

What happened to that 1 billion, 500 million dollars
in drug revenue, when people in Afghanistan have
incomes of less than 2 dollars a day? Whose hands
received that money, and what was it used to purchase?

(Raven stands on one foot, scratches his head.)

He seems to remember that in past years money from
the Afghan opium production passed through the hands
of the usual suspects—the hands of the CIA;
the hands of Osama Bin Laden’s “freedom fighters”
(Reagan dixit), later Al Qaeda; the hands of who knows
which warlord—an embarrassment of riches glittering
out of the reach of the hands of the Afghan people who
have nothing.

(At the end of the tunnels of his eyes Raven glimpses
a question mark vibrating in the darkness.)

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