the war effort



TIME BOMB
In the early eighties there had been a huge influx into Britain of high grade heroin from Iran, a useful commodity in times of political turmoil. Five times the value of gold. Following the UN Crop survey published October 25th 2002 we were informed that 3,400 metric tons of opium were produced in Afghanistan in 2002 - higher than the 2,000 ton harvest before the Taliban banned production. 90% of all heroin sold in Britain originates from Afghanistan. First maybe we should count the clock that takes us into the larger 'Street Wars' that will begin on our doorsteps at the end of January 2003, with the saturation of Afghanistan's 2002 opium poppy harvest onto British streets and think of the hidden issues surrounding the hidden victims and the hidden weapons. . . . . . . Look as you leave today. . . . .

Then maybe, we should count the clock that takes us into Britain's next war with our American allies and ponder in thought on why 12 months after the 1990-1 Gulf War ended it was, that Britain sold Iraq Pralidoxime - an antidote to nerve gas which can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas - and why the US sold Iraq anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs, botulism and salmonella. My factual sources have been supplied by the Guardian Newspaper October 26th 2002 edition and The Observer 5th January 2003 edition. Do you believe what you read in Newspapers and absorb from television news programmes? Do I? . . . . . TIME WILL TELL . . . . . Is it in the interests of the American government to see mass consumption of heroin on streets in Western cities? Afghanistan's only cash crop proceeds are from the global distribution of heroin. Do they eventually find their way to the Afghani farming sector which supports 200,000 workers? Does a cut of this goes into the coffers of local Afghani warlords (peace barons), who will continue to support the American-backed Afghani government of Hamid Karzai (as long as the money flows in)? Is this true? Are British and American dead junkies becoming the true silent war heroes? I don't know . . . Do you? . . . . WILL TIME TELL . . ?

Web links see
(http://www.art-tube.com/)
(http://www.rawa.org/)
(http://www.retinacircus.co.uk/projects/projects.htm
(see Doria Hemming an alias for John Hyatt & myself)

Clock photographs by:
Jess Hurd,
Jonathan Moberly
Izaac Sanderswood

Film By:
Jaime Rory Lucy
Jacob Sanderswood

Original artwork commissioned by:
Bill Drummond

An exhibition by:
Tracey Sanders-Wood. . . .