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Lately I have been thinking about the nuts who believe in conspiracy theories. Nobody wants to touch them even with a ten-foot pole. Today I saw an article about the Taliban in a day-old newspaper at the lunch counter, and it got me thinking about conspiracies again. So consider this a prequel to an upcoming article about conspiracy buffs.
U.N. Suspects drug funds behind Taliban fighting
KABUL -- The Taliban are most likely financing their recent insurgency with drug money from Afghanistan's opium fields, but may also be receiving funds from some Middle Eastern countries and Al Qaeda organizations, the chairman of the United Nations Committee on sanctions on Al Qaeda and Taliban said here Tuesday.
"There is a strong suspicion of a linkage between drug trafficking and the increased Taliban activity," Heraldo Muñoz, the chairman of the committee, said at the end of his visit to Afghanistan. "One cannot discount, however, that money may come from some Middle Eastern countries."
Try to put yourself in poor Heraldo Muñoz's shoes. You have just gotten this cushy assignment because your wife works for the CIA. Yes, Tiffany Muñoz, you have been outed in this column. You have no idea why your swank new blue and white Range Rover needs so many radio antennas.
Let’s see. The Taliban and Al-Qaida seem to be flourishing everywhere. They are picking out the new carpet for their branch offices in Kirkuk and Faluja. Your job is to explain how this could possibly happen. There are two very important observations you must report back to Kofi. These people probably have some money, and that money must have come from somewhere. There. Can we all go home now and file our expense reports? Come on. If we had no idea where the money came from, we would probably say drugs and Arabs.
We need to think through this story. The Taliban are making things difficult for everyone by hiding in these mirrored caves. The blind Mullah Omar was last seen riding off on his motorcycle straight up a cliff. But how do you hide miles and miles of lush delicate crops in this landscape. Maybe Heraldo has a conspiracy theory that explains all this. You just have to push the right book on Mullah’s bookshelf, and swish. Ok, maybe something else. Lush green fields of poppies and ganja as far as the eye can see, till the evil Mullah claps his hands three times just so, and presto! Moonscape again. Imagine music from a Clint Eastwood movie here.
Ask any of your hippie neighbors and they will tell you that this is no way to grow a healthy crop. These plants require a lot of love and attention. Maybe it is our guys who have set up this massive agro business. In this game you are either with us or against us. Remember that? Well it is too late to change that rule now. So if it is not them, it must be us behind this operation. Poor Heraldo Muñoz and Hamid Karzai have to make a big stink about how the Taliban are stealing from this elaborate agribusiness supply chain, without drawing too much attention to the massive industry itself. Imagine if General Sanchez had to constantly ask for help putting out fires in the oil pipeline and deny that there are any oil pipelines in Iraq at the same time.
As a teenager I once watched a documentary about the Soviet invasion with my Pashtun friends in the dorms. A solemn looking man with the big turban and matching beard was standing in front of a lush field of opium poppies making a detailed statement to the camera. “From over there to over here is my crop, the rest belongs to President Reagan and wife Nancy. Otherwise we are not allowed to export,” my friends translated. I think that my friends were too lazy and twisted to translate the complete description of this complex value-added supply chain. I was not going to argue with a guy using an exacto knife to make two neat piles of his own goodies on a record cover to illustrate his point. Only a sick conspiracy nut would suggest that white folks would ever conspire to get involved in something as heinous as the heroin trade.
Taliban were rotten guys. Don’t get me wrong. And nobody was impressed when Mussolini made the trains run on time. But there is still something impressive about the fact that the Taliban risked starvation and fought with their lives to eradicate the crops. Sounds to me like a conspiracy to mess with the lifestyles of skinny androgynous kids in Berlin and Glasgow.
