Legal Trade of Khat in UK Funding Terror in Yemen?
In fact, no one at all, save for a few counterterrorism specialists, seemed particularly concerned that the extensive transportation and distribution network enabled by the British was no doubt filling the coffers of terrorist organizations in the Horn of Africa. To be fair, I’ve seen no definitive proof that terrorist organizations are profiting from the khat trade. But if it’s indisputable that our Taliban and al-Qaeda enemies in Afghanistan happily fund their extremist activity from poppy taxation and heroin smuggling, then the only responsible assumption is that the same enemy is tapping into the khat trade in Yemen.
Changed circumstances since my reporting about khat so long ago argue strongly for British authorities to finally reverse the khat policy — and for the Obama administration to make sure that our European ally gets over its reticence to offend immigrants.
For starters, Yemen has moved front and center to the American target list as a failing state shaping up to present as much of a direct threat to the U.S. homeland as Afghanistan did until October 2001. Our English friends shouldn’t be feeling any less immune from khat-supported attacks that might come care of Yemen-based plotters.
The ranks of al-Qaeda affiliates operating in sympathetic, lawless regions of Yemen, Somalia, and Eritrea have dramatically expanded as American predator drone attacks practically wrecked the previously tranquil terrorist lifestyle in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan. Until the December 24 air raids, they had it made in Yemen. The country’s wobbly regime felt it risky to attack good fundamentalist Muslims on its own territory. But then American intelligence proved to Yemen’s regime that al-Qaeda was planning to hit it next. The Yemen government finally acted militarily. Now there’s no going back.
In retaliation for those December 24 raids, the terrorist organization proudly claimed it had deployed the young Nigerian terrorist who came so close to blowing up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day. A calculating Obama administration wisely appears to be gearing up to hit those who sent him. Obama’s generals also are moving special operations forces to more permanent digs in Yemen to help with intelligence and counterterrorism operations.
Another circumstance that argues for the British to help starve out those who control Yemen’s khat trade is its extraordinary growth in recent years. While al-Qaeda was expanding its operations in Yemen, acreages under khat cultivation spread to historic dimensions. Whatever the reasons for its thirsty spread, khat farming in Yemen has become so ubiquitous that a nationwide water shortage was attributed to it in 2009. Khat is now considered Yemen’s biggest cash crop and one of its top exports. The drug keeps turning up with disturbing regularity in middle America, as regular busts in places like Minnesota and Pennsylvania attest.
One easy way to do damage to a khat trade that may well fund future young men who would blow up airliners over American cities is for Great Britain to simply criminalize the stuff. The beauty of this simple solution is that interdicting khat doesn’t require the fruitless sacrifices entailed in interdicting Afghan heroin, where one blocked supply route is easily replaced by an unobstructed one, or where expensive militarized eradication programs need to be tried and retired in failure.
Khat’s narcotic effect happens to be extremely time-sensitive. It works best a few days after harvest. When leaves dry out, the effect diminishes along with the street price. That’s why all the khat I saw for sale in London was always kept tightly wrapped in banana leaves and refrigerated. It had to be thrown out, shopkeepers told me, if it didn’t sell in a day or two.
That means shutting down the huge Heathrow Airport portal would so lengthen any other potential distribution line as to quite literally dry up a huge swath of the international khat business overnight, or at the very least the 30 tons a month that now move quickly from the fields of Yemen into the UK. It needs to be done because the lifeblood of international terrorists often enough is illicit cash from international smuggling enterprises.
Our stalwart allies across the pond need to find the political will to shut this spigot off. The Obama administration needs to help them find that will in a hurry, because until such time as our friends in war do the right thing on khat, any new enhanced American military front opened in Yemen is going to be less effective.
Britian is long gone. The Labour (Left Wing) Party saw to that. They have trashed and destroyed their nation to accommodate Middle Easteners who arrive daily to help with the destruction. Mind boggling.
Of course, just ban it, and the problem ceases to exist… and because drugs are illegal in the UK, no-one here takes or sells them, just like in the US, where no-one ever would dream of breaking the law or getting rich quick selling drugs.
It’s not like we don’t have enough criminal/terrorist gangs that peddle illegal drugs (we have police-manned roadblocks with machine guns in North London to slowdown the smack dealers…), no, we urgently need to add yet another illegal market opportunity to the mafia’s portfolio so that the police and justice system has some more busywork yet.
I like the way the author then admits he has seen no evidence of terrorist getting rich on Khat… yes, the reason is that Khat is very cheap because it’s legal and real terrorists don’t find it an attractive business proposition because of that, as there is this thing called ‘work’ and ‘paying taxes’ involved in order to earn money.
Two words: defoliant spraying.
Grow it legally in the US and export it. Prohibition will merely raise the price. Let the profits go to American farmers.
Geez I’ve been losing sleep as I am sure you all have over that lawless Yemen, It’s a good thing we’re showin some spine, really we’ve always been at war with Yemen, about time its coming out those evil evil khat-mongers. And no I don’t think gross incompetence is any reason to abolish Homerland Security. They just need much more power and money and far fewer freedoms to have to guard. And don’t get me started on crazy Iran, they keep starting war after war in the middle east, at least we guard our nations borders and don’t bother anyone else. That Iran has been going downhill ever since the three wise man of Christmas left out from there.
http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/
Please, PJM, stop it with the drug prohibition articles. You have readers here who are libertarians–in fact a lot of us are libertarians. Stop it, it’s stupid and insulting.
I’ve been saying it since I first visited the Middle East: qat will the next cocaine. Right now, the natives pluck a few leaves and chew on them to get a mild buzz, same as the locals and coca plants. At some point, someone in the West will isolate the active ingredient and distill it into a concentration that makes the consumer lose his mind. The next step is to make it ingestible, smokable, inhalable, whatever — and it will sweep the world. The only thing that will stop this is that in heavy doses it’s been known to cause severe permanent vision loss — but who knows, we could wind up having to care for a bunch of blind addicts for the rest of their lives.
“Nothing in British law stands in the way of at least 30 tons of freshly cut Yemen khat arriving at Heathrow Airport every month.”
This might be about the only sensible thing in British law. Good lord, why can’t we have this stuff? Who doesn’t like mildly euphoric stimulants? Beats coffee.
As for yemen, just nuke it. All of it. Seriously, why bother with trying to fight them one-on-one? It is a total dump of a country. Just get rid of it. But take the khat first.
Anyway, conservatives really need to get over the idea that molecules have moral properties. That is the single dumbest idea next to the idea that my exhalation causes the Earth to warm (and fortunately, conservatives only have a few dumb ideas compared to liberals, who pretty much don’t have any ideas that aren’t at least half-retarded). I thought we liked to hold people responsible for their own behavior? Substance abuse=bad. Substance use in moderation=not so bad. Easy, right? Good. Now bring on the khat and nuke the Yemenis. And the Somalis too. I mean who is going to miss them and their amazing contributions to the world? If your countries claim to fame is that you invented the underwear bomb, it is probably time for you to cease existing.
The most shocking thing about this story – there are a quarter million Somali immigrants in the UK?! What the hell was the UK government thinking? Why let that many uneducated Muslims into what was once England? Labour really did decide to destroy the country.
How about a story exposing money laundering going on in Wall street and London currency exchanges..?
concerned about a couple billion being laundered….how much concern does several billion per day raise..? The exchanges have been laundering massive amounts of cash for banking and govt interests for decades..yet nobody wants to touch the reality of the exchanges.
Start with Dennis Hastert, Ex Speaker of the House, United States congress. That will get your started in the right direction.
Stories like his will just serve as more ammo for the BNP.
“250,000 Somali immigrants have taken up residence”
“Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. . . I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. . . But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.” – Andrew Neather
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The problem isn’t that Britain allows Khat imports, the problem is that it allowed 250,000 Somalis to colonize its land and people. Britain is a grossly overcrowded country, with 60+ million people crammed into a space the size of Oregon, they shouldn’t be allowing ANY immigration above a trickle, if that. Islamic terrorism within the West (and to some degree without as well) is a by-product of treasonous, hateful, multiculturalism, political correctness, and internationalism. Conservatives are simply too gutless to take on the real problem, West-hating racism from the elite, and confine themselves to whining about peripheral issues, thus helping to insure their nations, civilization, and political movement (“render their arguments out of date”) will be swept into the dustbin of history.
They ( the English ) don’t want to offend their muslim immigrants…….
Well, that sort of sums up the whole problem right there doesn’t it?
This is what happens when cowardice hides behind being polite.
By all means, these people should be offended at every opportunity and sent back to the bowels from which they come.
DH
  Break out all the unused stockpile of Agent Orange and defoliate the crops, it worked pretty good in Nam. If they grow it then we kill it, they are poor as hell already so just make them even more so!
  There the Khat problem is solved! To those offended sell them oregano or something that looks like it and maybe they will get a placebo effect!
If made illegal, it might become more profitable, funding more terror.
Not if you make the punishment harsh enough! Like death for growing or shipping or trafficking or anything concerning this stupid plant. Just dump Agent Orange one it, and be cone with it!
I hear Khat works wonders for erectile dysfunction. Great! Just what we need, another embarrassing television commercial to watch with friends and family.