The Taliban in Afghanistan shifted targets anew in a attack on aid workers in Kunduz Laura King, of the Los Angeles Times writes what many others do in about the attack and death and goals of the Taliban.

But, fails to mention exactly what the workers were doing. Nor the success of the programs they have been working on nor that the area attacked was once a major poppy growing region that now has seen a ray of hope made in an effort to sum up the mood of the majority of the press corps in Afghanistan that is increasingly anti-western and anti-war.

Increasingly to ‘service stories’ set by editorial lines thousands of miles away that seek – perhaps with the best of intentions to end the deployment of US troops abroad. But some wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye.

Are drug gangs and cartels using their money to fund anti-war groups and push for an end to aid projects by using more than just terror but also pay-off’s and directing the mood of public opinion. Analysts say that the cartels “With their wealth as a lobby effort to ensure any programs that hamper poppy production are cut off by making sure ‘bad press’ and a mix of paid hacks are kept in the loop that follow agenda to end aid programs,”

In essence by targeting aid workers and programs, ” That will make sure heroin production continues in Afghanistan” and eventually winds up in LA’s drug dens? It is an intriguing point, Are journalists relying too much on cartel fed info and in fact become press agents of Narco-terrorists?

UN World Drug Report 2010

One reporter I met, a German, recently returned from Afghanistan pointed out that much of his source base and ability to move around without problems was provided by Afghan drug runners and smugglers who often got him to areas where ‘abuse stories’ were present.

At one point he himself began to see close coordination between the cartel groups and Taliban whom he was able to interview and his handlers. “There is a real relationship between these groups – and – this is overlooked a lot. They want foreign troops out so the trade can go on. It’s not ideology – it’s for profit.”

The symbiotic relationship  led him to wonder what was really happening – it became clear when a photographer he was traveling with and a guide offered him drugs and cash as bonus from their ’transportation coordinators’ for particularly anti-US story he wrote. “I had been used – we checked out the story we did and found out our guides were actually hoping to end a project that would give authorities more access to an area they controlled and put up communication and electricity. That would have ended the cartels control in the area. So they created a situation where a EU funded project was canceled.” Jonsey not his real name told me over beers. He learned his lesson and is now more careful of following the pack-fed stories of Afghanistan press corps.

Much of the reporting like Laura’s who is in Kabul much to her credit, is done on event based news cycles. Editors often won’t see or take stories that they percieve are parts of hearts and minds campaigns fed by the military. Why? they don’t want to upset reader bases that are shrinking and feed the beast that is public opinion by making sure the tone is anti-war.

[],,, A Taliban suicide squad attacks a compound in Kunduz used by a Washington development group, killing British, Filipino and German employees as well as a security guard and Afghan police officer. Afghan soldiers inspect the scene of a Taliban attack...[]

UPDATE: Philippine Gov’t says FIlipino injured – not killed in Attack:

No Pinoy killed in Taliban attack on USAID site in Afghanistan — DFA

GMA news.tv – ‎3 hours ago‎

No Filipino was killed during a recent attack of a house being used by the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) in Afghanistan, the Department of Foreign Affairs clarified on Saturday.

Filipino survives Taliban attack at USAID offices Manila Bulletin

In the battle versus those who use Terrorism one needs to see what the goals are in clear terms. The DAI contract group became a target because it was effectively building projects that changed lives in the region and moved people away from the decades old influence of drug cartels which in turn use groups like the Taliban to turn local communities into fiefdoms where people are not allowed to grow anything but subsistence agriculture with the majority of the crops they produce reserved for opium poppy production and its use to make heroin.

The US house committee on foreign affairs chair Howard Berman’s comments are no where to found on the LA times report for example because it doesn’t jive with the news cycle and editorial viewpoint that only tell of attacks and deaths and killings.

Very little reporting is going into press reports of how even with the violence that lives in many places in Afghanistan has changed for the better. As the notoriously brutal Taliban rule often killed more people in executions for any whim or idea that opposed their total control.

Washington, DC – Congressman Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today gave his condolences for USAID workers killed in an attack in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

“Our hearts go out to the victims of today’s senseless attack on humanitarian assistance workers in Kunduz, and their families, friends and colleagues.  The bombing serves to highlight the grave risks that our civilian aid professionals face on a daily basis in their efforts to protect U.S. national security and reduce the suffering of innocent Afghanis, who often bear the brunt of the Taliban’s brutal tactics.”

The drug cartels are the major ‘enemy’, their sales and smuggling provide the vast majority of support for the Taliban efforts and when people change their lives and move away from warlord and drug=lord control to start independent lives or expand their horizons with agriculture production then people can start to feed themselves and their families.

The goal of the USAID programs is two fold. The first to create food centers that provide sustenance and income to rural farmers who in truth earn little from the poppy production itself. In areas where drug cartels control the countryside – think 19th century sharecropper America and you begin to get the picture.

They use all means to ensure local keep up poppy production – even to the point of enforcing rules on how much food they can grow. Often forcing poppy farmers to get everything they need from the cartels warlords – from insecticides to medicines to food at usury loan rates versus their poppy crop. By breaking the livelihood cycle and using the Taliban as enforcers the cartels have virtual feudal zones they control in total – even right down to selling the farmers whatever they need to keep the grip on these communities.

The profits made can cycle of control can be read about in the 2010 trafficking and drug and crime report for the United Nations which goes into detail as to how the funding of terrorist and insurgent extremist groups like the Taliban are fought best with programs like the DAI contract projects of USAID and other international aid groups.

No Filipino killed in Afghanistan attack, says embassy Inquirer.net

Popularity: 5% [?]