Under a Sky of Diamonds...

By Laila Anwar

".....I did mention in earlier posts that drugs were virtually unknown in the Iraq of "before". I also did mention that since the "after", all kinds of drugs circulate in the market.

I also noted that members of death militias of the "nationalist", "patriotic", "anti-occupation"(hahahaha) loving version of Mahatma Gandhi - Muqtada Al Sadr and Co, are regular users of drugs. That may partly explain their total numbness when on their drilling fix.

But now the "breaking news". Just read that opium is being grown in Southern Iraq. Under the agricultural expertise and auspices of Iran of course. Iraq turning into a poppy field, turning into an Afghanistan?Not far fetched at all. ( Read full article here) .

Now let me get this right, maybe am missing something here.

Alcohol shop owners are arrested, tortured and have their shops burned down because they are engaging in some "haram" (prohibited) behavior.
Women are forced to veil and keep a low profile otherwise they would be engaging in "haram" behavior...
But hey it is ok to grow opium.

Smoke it, sniff it, inject it ...that 's absolutely cool.
The Mullahs said so and they may even partake in your sanctified ceremenious activitiy every now and then.

So Iraqis are not only getting tortured, raped, slaughtered, blown to pieces, massacred.
They are not only made destitute and impoverished.
They are not only turned into refugees.
They are not only polluted with chemical and biological weapons.
They are not only deprived of water, electricity, food and basic services.
They are not only stripped of any basic rights in their own country...
No, there has to be more...
They will also be turned into drug traffickers and addicts...

What else can Iran and the U.S think of to exterminate us? Any more constructive loving ideas?

Is that not wonderful? Don't you just love this new Iraq of the "beatniks"?

Why don't you pass the joint, pipe, syringe and... lie next to me in my new roofless den. We can, then both contemplate our lovely Iraqi sky and see a thousand heavenly diamonds shining like bright stars...

But shhhhh....Don't tell the mullahs. It's haram!"

***

The U.S. is taking a page out of the British Imperial history:

"The Opium War, also called the Anglo-Chinese War, was the most humiliating defeat China ever suffered. In European history, it is perhaps the most sordid, base, and vicious event in European history, possibly, just possibly, overshadowed by the excesses of the Third Reich in the twentieth century.

By the 1830's, the English had become the major drug-trafficking criminal organization in the world; very few drug cartels of the twentieth century can even touch the England of the early nineteenth century in sheer size of criminality. Growing opium in India, the East India Company shipped tons of opium into Canton which it traded for Chinese manufactured goods and for tea. This trade had produced, quite literally, a country filled with drug addicts, as opium parlors proliferated all throughout China in the early part of the nineteenth century. This trafficing, it should be stressed, was a criminal activity after 1836, but the British traders generously bribed Canton officials in order to keep the opium traffic flowing. The effects on Chinese society were devestating. In fact, there are few periods in Chinese history that approach the early nineteenth century in terms of pure human misery and tragedy...."