In Afghanistan, drug rehab for children
Kabul, Afghanistan Najiba scrabbles through cupboards frantic for something sweet. She claws at her mother, urging her to help. Najiba, though only 13 years old, lives in the Sanga Amaj drug addiction rehab clinic in Kabul with her mother, Zainab – who is also an opium addict, a habit acquired ...
Cops Show Marines How to Take on the Taliban
LOS ANGELES — A tough-talking, muscular Los Angeles police sergeant steadily rattled off tips to a young Marine riding shotgun as they raced in a patrol car to a drug bust: Be aware of your surroundings. Watch people's body language. Build rapport.Marine Lt. Andrew Abbott, 23, took it all in ...
Police kill 64 people in Afghan drug bust
Afghan counter-narcotics police and international security forces killed 64 people and arrested 10 others during a three-day operation in Helmand province, the interior ministry said. Authorities also discovered and burned 16,641 kilograms (36,687 pounds) of narcotics during the operation, which ended Sunday, the interior ministry said. The ministry described the ...
GAO report casts new doubt on Afghanistan policy
WASHINGTON -- An independent government report on Wednesday raises new questions about the likelihood of success for President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy, which nearly doubles the number of U.S. troops there before a planned drawdown begins in July 2011.The report, by the Government Accountability Office, found the Taliban remain a ...
Number of Soldiers Seeking Opiate Abuse Treatment Skyrockets
The number of American soldiers seeking treatment for opiate abuse has skyrocketed over the past five years, at a time when the U.S. military has been surging forces into the heart of the world's leading opium producer. Pentagon statistics obtained by FoxNews.com show that the number of Army soldiers enrolled in ...
Time for NATO to face facts: The jig is up
Politicians, including Stephen Harper, and pundits are united in condemning Hamid Karzai. He's crazy to claim that he might join the Taliban and that Americans have long-term designs on Afghanistan, retaining military bases there to keep an eye on neighbouring China, Pakistan, Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan etc.) and the North Caucasus ...
Insecurity in Uruzgan as Dutch prepare to leave
Instead of being sold openly out in the street, opium is now mainly available under the counter in Tarin Kowt. The capital of the southern Afghan province Uruzgan has grown so much, houses are now practically on the doorstep of the Dutch military base Kamp Holland. A multitude of stores ...
Marines try unorthodox tactics to disrupt Afghan opium harvest
CAMP LEATHERNECK, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. Marines are mounting an intensive effort to disrupt the opium harvest in the former Taliban enclave of Marja by confiscating tools from migrant workers, compensating poppy farmers who plow under their fields and collaborating with Drug Enforcement Administration personnel to raid collection sites. The steps ...
DEA says Afghan opium seizures soar in 2009
KABUL — Opium seizures in Afghanistan soared 924 percent last year because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces, the top U.S. drug enforcement official said Thursday.The Taliban largely funds its insurgency by profits from the opium trade, making it a growing target of U.S. and Afghan anti-insurgency operations. ...
UN: Afghanistan is World's Top Hashish Producer
A new U.N. survey shows Afghanistan is not only the world's top opium producer, but it has surpassed Morocco in becoming the top global producer of hashish. From Paris, our correspondent has more on the findings by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The U.N. survey adds to international ...
Can Anyone Pacify the World's Number One Narco-State?
In ways that have escaped most observers, the Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit.After a year of cautious debate and costly deployments, President Obama finally launched his new Afghan ...
Afghan drug capital is U.S. target in coming offensive
KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S.-led offensive that's expected to start soon in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province will be a battle not only against the Taliban but also against an insurgent-backed narcotics trade that provides a livelihood for thousands of residents. Helmand produces more than half the world's opium, and Marjah, ...
Britain hits grim milestone before major attack
KABUL -- Three British soldiers have died in southern Afghanistan, officials announced Monday, raising Britain's death toll in the conflict to 256 - breaking the number of Britons lost in the Falklands war of 1982.Britain reached the grim milestone as British, American and Afghan forces are preparing for a major ...
Afghan president Hamid Karzai urges West to buy off the Taliban
After giving up on winning victory in Afghanistan by military means, the international community is resorting to the centuries-old method of buying its way out. In London this week, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, will launch a British and American-backed plan for “reintegration” of the Taliban and call for international ...
U.N. report finds corruption rife in Afghanistan
LONDON (Reuters) - Corruption costs Afghans $2.5 billion a year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday, with the scale of bribery matching Afghanistan's opium trade.The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said a national survey it conducted showed Afghans were more concerned by public dishonesty than insecurity ...
AP Interview: US agriculture secretary urges Afghan farmers to grow grapes not opium poppy
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban make Afghanistan's opium business easy, offering credit, seeds and fertilizer to farmers to grow the drugs that fuel the insurgency. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who wrapped up a three-day visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, is determined to change that momentum by offering similar incentives ...
1 US, 8 Afghan troops killed by roadside bombs
KABUL — Roadside bombs have killed eight Afghan soldiers and a U.S. service member in separate incidents in Afghanistan, officials said Friday.NATO confirmed the American died Thursday in eastern Afghanistan, but provided no other details.Also Thursday, an Afghan army vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province in central Afghanistan. ...
Afghan militant attacks set pace for a bloody 2010
KABUL — Afghanistan's war exited 2009 on a sour note for an international community that has committed thousands of troops and billions of dollars into transforming the country into a peaceful, modern democracy.And there is only likely to be more violence in 2010, analysts said.As tens of thousands of soldiers ...
Troops deaths in Afghan war seen rising with surge
KABUL — The arrival in Afghanistan of tens of thousands of reinforcements to fight the Taliban will lead to a higher death rate among foreign troops, adding pressure on Western leaders to get out altogether, officials say.Militants fighting for the overthrow of the Kabul government promised to turn Afghanistan into ...
Marine charged with breaking into pharmacy
JACKSONVILLE, NC -- Police say they arrested a Camp Lejeune Marine caught stealing more than 2,000 pills from a Jacksonville pharmacy Monday.Douglas Sumner, 20, of Weapons Company, 2nd Marine Division, was charged Monday by the Jacksonville Police Department with breaking and entering, larceny, possession of stolen property, possession of burglary ...
Afghan women lead protest against government corruption
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Several hundred women, many holding aloft pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, held a loud but nonviolent street protest today, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban. "These women are ...
As deaths in Afghanistan rise, so does the growth of opium
Attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan are at record levels and threaten to derail efforts to rebuild the war-torn country, while an unholy alliance of Taliban drug dealers and corrupt government officials has made a mockery of coalition forces' attempts to stem the export of heroin. The findings, from new ...
Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys -- The Very Dark Side of the Afghan Occupation
Just when President Barack Obama looked as if he might be railroaded into sending tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan the American envoy to Kabul has warned him not to do so. In a leaked cable to Washington sent last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen Karl ...
Gen. (Ret.) Jack Keane Discusses Afghanistan with Al Jazeera English's Avi Lewis
JACK KEANE: Karzai's brother is a thug, in every sense of the word. We're onto him, to all the problems he's causing. Is he mixed up in trafficking of drugs and criminality? Yes. In a very large way in the south. AVI LEWIS: In all your time – KEANE: He ...
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June 5th, 2013
Here's How We Built a Movie Theater for the People – and Why the MPAA Says It's #1 in the World
This past week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the main federation of Hollywood's six major studios, posted on their web site a list of what they believe ...
March 23rd, 2013
This evening is going be a big moment in turning our country around on the issue of gun violence. That's why I desperately want you ...
March 21st, 2013
I am hosting a nationwide series of house parties this Saturday night where tens of thousands of people will gather together in living rooms to ...
March 15th, 2013
The response to my Newtown letter this week has been overwhelming. It is so very clear to everyone that the majority of Americans have had ...
March 13th, 2013
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The year was 1955. Emmett Till was a young African American boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi. One day Emmett was seen "flirting" with ...
February 26th, 2013
My Final Word on Buzzfeed and Emad Burnat's Detention at LAX
Thanks to everyone for bearing with me as I spend so much time on what happened to Emad Burnat. It's important to me because he's ...
February 26th, 2013
Michael Moore Responds to Buzzfeed Story on '5 Broken Cameras' Co-Director Emad Burnat
On Tuesday, February 19th, Emad Burnat, the Palestianian co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary '5 Broken Cameras,' was detained with his wife and son at Los ...
September 11th, 2010
If the 'Mosque' Isn't Built, This Is No Longer America
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December 14th, 2010
Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that ...
May 12th, 2011
Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden
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November 22nd, 2011
Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?
This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and ...
September 22nd, 2011
A STATEMENT FROM MICHAEL MOORE ON THE EXECUTION OF TROY DAVIS
I encourage everyone I know to never travel to Georgia, never buy anything made in Georgia, to never do business in Georgia. I will ask ...
December 16th, 2010
Dear Swedish Government: Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your ...
November 2nd, 2010
This letter contains (almost) no criticisms of how the Democrats have brought this day of reckoning upon themselves. That -- and where to go from ...