#opium trade

[immaculatasknight]

Yes, there IS a deep state

[whatisonthemoon]

This episode of Things Observed with Recluse is even more detail-filled than his earlier, brief overview of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Recluse has been studying the parapolitical aspects of the Unification Church and the Religious Right for years, and the seriousness of his research is evident in this episode.

EPISODE LINK: World Anti-Communist League feat. Recluse: International Drug Trafficking, Nazis, Ukraine, the China Lobby and the Fascist International

Today I am joined with Steve Snyder, the host of The Farm podcast, the man who runs the VISUP blog and the author of A Special Relationship: Trump, Epstein, And the Secret History of the Anglo-American Establishment. He is also one of the authors of Strange Tales of the Parapolitical: Postwar Nazis, Mercenaries, and Other Secret History. In addition to buying his books you can read some of his work by visiting visupview.blogspot.com.In this episode Recluse joins us to discuss the World Anti-Communist League. We cover the groups that would come together to form the WACL such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League and the Unification Church or better known in America as the Moonies. We also discuss WACL's and it's founders relationship to the international opium trade. We discuss people like the Yakuza gangster and fascist drug lord Yoshio Kodama and the unlikely partnership he would form with Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-Shek and how they along with other WACL members would dominate the global opium trade. Not only did some in the WACL have ties to the drug trade through opium but also through the cocaine trade. We discuss some of those involved in WACL and the distribution of cocaine. We also discuss how the WACL relates to Latin American Death Squads, the Mexican Esoteric Nazi order of the Tecos, the China Lobby which served as a kind of precursor to the Israel Lobby, Claire Chennault and the flying tigers, Air America and CIA drug trafficking, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist and how that relates to the current Russia/Ukraine conflict and so much more. Recluse is astoundingly smart, and this episode is absolutely jam packed with information. Also, there is some fun stuff about how Recluse got into researching the parapolitical as well as what separates the WACL from other think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. So, join us to learn about the shadowy group that the conspiratorial right won't touch with a ten-foot pole, the World Anti-Communist League.

[archiveofliterature]

thinking about how ramy says, “this is how the empire connects us,” in regards to opium and he’s so devastatingly right

but also:

ramy and robin find their lost languages in each other (cantonese is bold and sharp like ramy; bangla is sweet and soft like robin)

ramy and robin share cultural new years (chinese in jan/feb, bengali in april)

(while i’m not sure if these nicknames existed in the late 1830s) very common bengali endearments carry the same root word, pākhi, which means bird. bird, birdie.

and you will say – didn’t the empire start all this, too? didn’t the british take ramy and robin’s preferred languages away from them? didn’t they rip them from their homes where they would celebrate their new years? didn’t robin choose this name because the british wouldn’t let him have his chinese name?

the british started it, but they didn’t expect there to be this level of intimate solidarity. they wanted to pull the oppressed apart, pit them against each other, but the similarities are copious bc ramy and robin have much more in common with each other than they will ever with the empire

they take the cruelty, mould it into smth they can share and build together

the empire couldn’t have that. so they did what they knew best: they took them away from each other

[mxtxfanatic]

Have you ever read "The Shade of Old Trees" by Kryal on ao3?

I genuinely think you might enjoy it, the characterization is top tier and the author's notes go heavy into details on why they made this or that decision. It was all incredibly good, well thought out, well researched, and with not an ounce of fanon to find.

I’ve read it, and while I initially enjoyed the story and the long author’s notes, I found it very toothless in its critique of anything substantial despite the author bringing up major issues in the modern world, themself. It also felt like their understanding of China and its history came straight from one of those 5-minute info-videos that’s half American state propaganda and pretend like the history of modern China begins in 1949. Finally, they also fall into the trap of softening Jiang Cheng’s character in the final confrontation with the excuse that “jc wouldn’t actually want to kill wwx!” despite that being what he literally did and tried to do again in canon. I appreciate them writing through their logic, but that doesn’t mean I’ll agree with the leaps they take simply because they’ve explained why they’ve made them. Great start, weak finish.

[turtles-allthewaydown]

Out of curiosity, what chapter of It Takes A Village (hurt/comfort, hotel residents helping Angel Dust in various circumstances) are you most interested in?

*already exists, click for Chapter One: Niffty

**already exists, click for Chapter Two: Vaggie

[tweedfrog]

Time travel to do list:

1. Stop the British East India Company from ever forming to prevent the rise of the 2 greatest evils this world has ever known: Biritsh People and the Stock Market.

2. Punch Leo Tolstoy in the face (this one is for u Sophia Tolstoy)

3. Purchase a bottle of the 60 drops of opium cough syrup

4. Befriend that one ancient farmer from babylonia (??? I think???) who was requesting water for his field and basically wrote the first ever "per my last email" and "cc-ing _____ for visibility!!!" In the history of mankind

[spider-xan]

On a different note, as I overheard a relevant conversation yesterday - me, the child of immigrants from Hong Kong, every time I have to overhear a Hong Konger or HK descendent talk about how much they love and admire the British Empire bc it was a benevolent 'civilizing' force that brought Western enlightenment to Hong Kong, unlike the dirty and barbaric Chinese mainlanders with their evil Oriental ways: 😒😒😒

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Western dealers (particularly the British) pushed the drug hard; by 1832 enough was pouring into Guangzhou – nearly twelve tons – to keep two or three million addicts high year-round (Figure 10.5).

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[teachanarchy]

Wars for Global Resources: Opium, Poop, and People | Modern World Histor...

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“SAYS DOPE RING BRIBE OFFERED,” Vancouver Sun. March 2, 1931. Page 1. ---- Opium Worth $2160 Found on Chinese by Constable --- The opium ring dangled "easy money" before the eyes of Duncan Ferguson, Vancouver police constable, when he arrested Lim Poon, Chinese, on February 15, it was alleged in Police Court today.

Ferguson refused to listen to the overtures, and as a result, Lim Foon is now committed for trial on a charge of possessing opium valued at $2160. 

The drug was in 18 tobacco tins contained in the pockets of a special cotton vest which Lim Poon wore under his sweater.

SIXTH SENSE ARREST Testimony at the preliminary hearing today showed that the "sixth sense," sometimes possessed by police officers, enabled Ferguson to make the arrest.

Ferguson was on duty at Marine Drive and Oak Street at 9:20 a.m. when he saw Lim Foon walking towards the Marpole bridge. Twenty minutes later he saw the Chinese return. Something in his manner aroused Ferguson's suspicions, so he approached the Oriental.

Lim Foon attempted to board a passing truck when he saw the officer beckoning to him, but Ferguson pursued and captured him. He took Lim Foon into custody and started escorting him to the Kerrisdale police substation by automobile.

"I BRING $600 TONIGHT" On the way, Ferguson testified. Lim Foon said: "Where do you live?" When the officer asked why he wanted to know, Lim Foon, according to the testimony, replied:

"You let me go and I bring you $600 tonight."

 Later, at the police station. Lim Foon was searched, and the opium was found.

The Chinese defense is he was sleeping under a pool table in Chinatown the night previous to the arrest, and that he found the package on the bridge, not knowing what it contained.

[sansculottides]

pisses me off to no end when people on reddit or whatever complain that the show wouldve been better off without the tuunbaq.....did we watch the same show? the tuunbaq is everything, it held everything together. the tuunbaq is the main transformative element of the terror. the tuunbaq elevates the text beyond mere historical fact and lets it say something about the expedition's broader context of imperialism. it hunted the british men who were trampling on its home as a mere stopover, a side casualty, to finding the northwest passage (for, you know, "trade with china" after britain beat china into submission after the imperialist opium war). silna couldnt complete a proper ritual with it because of the british men - just as british colonizers have historically intruded and disrupted the practice of indigenous culture. and in the end the tuunbaq dies, after all the injuries it's taken from the british over the course of 10 episodes and finally chokes to death on the worst of them. because there's no escaping the reality of colonial history, and there is especially no fantastical escape for the colonizer. there's no proper way for us to move forward otherwise.

good historical fiction doesnt have to limit itself to accuracy - it needs empathy to draw out meanings in history using literary craft. thats what the tuunbaq means to me.... if you wanted a straight depiction of historical record, just go watch a documentary.. TUUNBAQ DENIERS DNI

[immaculatasknight]

Globalized organized crime

[historyhermann]

Declassified U.S. Intelligence Documents Describe Taliban History with Illicit Narcotics Trade

On January 13 of this year, Hasibullah Ahmadi, head of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior’s counternarcotics department, asserted that drug trafficking from the country has dropped, but admitted this illicit trade continues in some provinces. These comments raise the question of the Taliban’s ties to the narcotics market and previous attempts to curb drug production. The declassified documents featured in today’s post, all released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), are a selection from the new Digital National Security Archive collection, Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017, which was published in December of last year. The three documents examined in this post detail the Taliban’s ties to international trafficking networks in the late 1990s and attempts to regulate the market in the early 2000s in an effort to curry favor from the international community. Taken together, the documents describe the Taliban’s ties to drug trafficking schemes and how poppy bans, even when effective, financially benefited the Taliban and associated trafficking consortiums. 

This was originally published on January 24, 2023 on Unredacted.

As the early Taliban movement emerged, from 1994 to 1996, narcotics production skyrocketed in Afghanistan, with declassified documents asserting that the group aligned themselves with international drug traffickers. There were indications from U.S. officials that narcotics production in the country significantly increased following the Taliban’s control over large swaths of the country. In a now-declassified Secret May 2001 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence outlined that by 2000 the country supplied an estimated 72% of the world’s “illicit opium”. This heavily redacted document included a map noting opium poppy growing areas in Afghanistan (page 26), and a chart showing rising opium cultivation between 1991 and 2000. The NIE noted that producers in Afghanistan had switched to supplying and producing more heroin over several years before 2001. 

This analysis was reinforced by a now-declassified Top Secret December 1998 CIA research paper, prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Crime and Intelligence Center, and recently released under the FOIA to the National Security Archive. This heavily-excised Top Secret report details the explosion of the narcotics market under Taliban rule, noting the ties of the group to Quetta Alliance, an international drug trafficking ring, which shared ties to Osama bin Laden. Furthermore, this report asserts that the Taliban’s increasing role in the country caused the narcotics business to explode. The paper also assesses the group’s involvement in illicit drug traffic, stating that it included top Taliban leaders and that this trade intensified “over the last several years,” leading to immense profits for the fundamentalist organization. Notably, the DCI Crime and Intelligence Center states that Afghan narcotics suppliers had shifted towards international markets, beyond distributing to drug traffickers in Turkey. The paper outlines that Taliban fighters provided “logistic support” and “protection” for drug trafficking and laboratories within the country. Most significantly, the paper argues that the Taliban forged ties to the Quetta Alliance, a major regional trafficking group, and terrorist sponsor of Osama bin Laden.

This paper was not alone in describing the Quetta Alliance. A publicly-available August 1994 report compiled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Intelligence Division, describes the Quetta Alliance as an alliance between three powerful trafficking groups operating out of Quetta, within Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province. The DEA report stated that this loose alliance was based on familial ties, and described the operation as “similar to a large manufacturing or service consortium.” This connected to the assertion in the aforementioned paper by the DCI Crime and Intelligence Center, which argued that once the Quetta Alliance became the dominant narco-trafficking group in southern Afghanistan, it provided financial support and recruits to the burgeoning Taliban.

By late 1999, the Taliban had banned poppy cultivation. This would be followed by a ban of opium cultivation and trafficking in July 2000, the latter in an edict by Taliban leader Mullah Omar. However, these bans did not interfere with trafficking and sale of opium or poppy. A declassified Secret July 2001 cable from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) stated that while the ban was primarily effective, it still substantially increased the Taliban’s revenue from illicit drug trafficking. The ban followed the U.N. Security Council resolutions 1267 and 1333, in 1999 and 2000 respectively, which condemned “the significant rise in the illicit production of opium” and demanded that the Taliban work to “virtually eliminate the illicit cultivation of opium poppy.” Later, the DIA cable notes that the Taliban likely weighed recognition from the international community from its own interests when considering an extension of the ban. 

This now-declassified DIA cable further stated that while the Taliban’s ban would likely reduce the worldwide opium production by at least 50%, the ban resulted in the quadrupling of the Afghan price for opium, morphine base, and heroin – which were previously at record lows. The cable explicitly states that one year after the ban the Taliban was still benefiting substantially from drug revenues, “… chiefly from its taxes on continuing narcotics trafficking and from Taliban-owned narcotics stockpiles, whose value has increased substantially.” The DIA cable also notes that the ban would likely not have an impact on the U.S. over the coming months, because its main heroin sources were from Southeast Asia and Latin America. While the Taliban never faced having to weigh its interests in extending the ban due to the U.S. invasion beginning in October 2001, the DIA cable notes all of the influences that the Taliban would likely weigh in the decision making processing, including the potential recognition from the international community, major narcotics traffickers’ reactions to an extension, the size of stockpiles, and the impact on their own finances. 

For more documents on the Taliban, see the Archive’s numerous sourcebooks, including the September 23, 2021, post, “Newly Published Documents Cast Doubt on Claims Taliban Will Give Up al Qaeda.” 

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[charlesoberonn]

We should have superheroes in more cities outside of the US and in more time periods.

Some examples off the top of my head:

A 13th century hero in the streets of Constantinople protecting people during the Latin occupation. They take the guise of a vengeful angel, making their acts of heroism seem supernatural.

A Chinese superhero team in Hong Kong fighting against the British during the Opium Wars. They're themed after the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.

An ancient Sumerian superhero prowling the streets of the first proper city on Earth. They come into conflict with both criminals and the king, who fears being usurped.

An Aztec superhero in pre-Columbian Tenochtitlan. They have aquatic powers and get around through the canals.

A West-African superhero fighting slavers both foreign and local during the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They're an escaped slave themselves and they adopt orphaned children, many of whom become their sidekicks, Batman and Robin style.

[teaboot]

I saw your post about various fragrances, and got curious, how did you find so many perfumes that you like? I use ysl black opium every single day because I like it and I'm too broke to test a ton of fragrances to find the best one. I sampled like 20 in Sephora and that was that. Do you have any tips or fragrance suggestions? Matching scents to everyday wear is a really neat idea, I guess it just seems a bit complicated to me.

I have an account on fragrantica.com where people who collect perfumes review and discuss them!

The individual smells I mentioned enjoying for particular colours are notes, btw, not individual perfumes- I think I only own like 7-8 perfumes and colognes, and most of them are samplers in little 2oz vials and stuff I got second-hand or as gifts lol.

My favourite part of saving smells for certain colours, outfits, or occasions is that later on, the memories attached to the scent remind me of the good memories! (My 16th birthday smells like Forza by Lamborghini, lol.)

I'd recommend making a list of your favourite smells, doing some research, and buying or trading samplers to figure out what you really love before investing in a bigger bottle!

I learned that I don't really like rosy scents or overtly floral perfumes, but I LOVE woody colognes and bergamot! Theres also something sharp and ascerbic in a lot of "men's" fragrances that reminds me of cat piss tho and I hate it, but I haven't figured out what it is yet >:(

It doesn't even need to be super complicated- you can start with just smelling candles, waxes, and essential oils at your local grocer and going from there.

Good luck, and have fun! 👍

[stedesbonnets]

mizu in every episode: hammerscale

You are blind, and so cannot see the shame of my face. I am... made of mixed metal. No amount of hammering can remove my impurity. At the time I was born, there were four white men in all of Japan. Men who traded in weapon and opium and flesh. One of them took my mother and made of me... a monster. A creature of shame. I do not know their names. I do know their fate. They will all die by my hand. I have vowed this.