World Bulletin/News Desk

U.S. government has –at least at some times in some parts of the world – protected drug operations, big American banks also launder money for drug cartels, RINF Alternative News reported.

Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001. According to the new report from the United Nations, opium production is at an all-time high.

According to the report, cultivation of poppy across the war-torn nation rose 36 per cent in 2013 and total opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012.

“This has never been witnessed before in the history of Afghanistan,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the outgoing leader of the Afghanistan office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which produced the report.

The U.S. military has allowed poppy cultivation to continue in order to appease farmers and government officials involved with the drug trade who might otherwise turn against the Afghan Karzai government in Kabul, the report says. Fueling both sides, in fact, the opium and heroin industry is both a product of the war and an essential source for continued conflict.

Public Intelligence has published a series of photographs showing American – and U.S.-trained Afghan – troops patrolling poppy fields in Afghanistan.