The Bush administration keeps holding Afghanistan up as a great success story. And thanks to the Republican Party's loyal press - Fox News, the Moonie's Washington Times and the various incarnations of Oxycontin radio - that view gets a good airing, largely unchallenged by our Potemkin press corps.
Fortunately, there are at least occasional exceptions: An Afghan Quandary for the US by Sonni Efron Los Angeles Times 12/02/05.
With a bumper poppy harvest expected in Afghanistan in the new year, a debate has erupted within the Bush administration on whether the United States should push for the crop's destruction despite the objections of the Afghan government.
Some U.S. officials advocate aerial spraying to reduce the opium crop, warning that if harvested, it could flood the West with heroin, fill the coffers of Taliban fighters and fund terrorist activity in Afghanistan and beyond. They estimate the haul could earn Afghan warlords up to $7 billion, up from a record $2.2 billion in 2004. ...
Some diplomats as well as many outside experts argue that aerial spraying, in particular, would be folly.
"You tell them, 'You're voting for a new democratic country,' while their government is allowing foreigners to come in and destroy their livelihood?" said Barnett R. Rubin, who was an advisor to the U.N. in Afghanistan in 2001. "And if you try to destroy it and have the economy decline by 10%, 20%, 40% in one year, what will the result be? The result will be armed revolt." ...
The U.S. government estimates that poppy cultivation exploded from 150,000 acres in 2003 to 510,000 acres in 2004 — much higher than an earlier U.N. estimate of 324,000 acres. That works out to potential profits of up to $7 billion, says Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), who follows counter-narcotics efforts from the House Appropriations Committee.
Worse, according to the United Nations, opium poppies are now grown in all 34 Afghan provinces, up from 18 provinces in 1999 and just eight provinces in 1994. (Afghanistan created two provinces in 2004.) The explosion in cultivation suggests that Afghan drug traffickers are offering agricultural advice, and possibly credit to farmers who are switching to the lucrative cash crop, officials said.
Realization of the opium problem in Afghanistan is not new, just under-reported. Afghanistan: The more it changes ... by Sohail Abdul Nasir Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Mar/Apr 2003.
All over Afghanistan, farmers are freely cultivating the poppy, and according to various reports, sophisticated factories have been set up in eastern, northern, and southern areas, where hundreds of kilograms of high-quality, easily transportable heroin is being produced. In the late 1990s, Mullah Omar banned poppy cultivation in Taliban-occupied areas, but even in those days, poppy was still cultivated in the northern province of Badakhshan and in some areas of the Panjshir valley, controlled by Burhan-ud-Din Rabbani and the late Ahmadshah Massoud, respectively.
Renewed heroin production, and the danger of an influx of the drug into the United States and Europe, is a great setback. It appears that the Afghan drug mafia has not only survived, but maintained its contacts with the rest of world, its financial resources, and its ability to smuggle heroin abroad.
Lawlessness and a weak central authority are the most prominent reasons for the revival of the heroin syndicates. Neither the international peacekeepers nor U.S. special forces are engaged in preventing poppy cultivation or heroin manufacturing. Nor has a British-led, £20 million anti-poppy campaign made much difference. And the drug mafia has the backing of local warlords. [my emphasis]
Nasir had a follow-up article in the print edition of the Sept/Oct Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
A press release issued by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that poppy cultimvation in Afghanistan doubled from 2002 to 2003, and now stands at a level 36 times higher than in the last year of Taliban rule. The rise in drug trafficking from Afghanistan has meant a new era of organizaed crime and an alrming increase in the number of drug addicts throughout the region. There are an estimated 4.5 million heroin addicteds here in Pakistan, and many believe addiction is on the rise.
The Hamid Karzai government knows why it is failing to control narcotics. Afghanistan society is heavily armed, and much of the country is essentially lawless. Surprisingly favorable weather conditions have also contributed to the problem. Drug manufacturing has explanded to such an extent that the drug lords are now importing manpower from neighboring countries.
The drug business is not conducted in isolation; it is always coupled with the arms trade and organized crime. Afghanistan's countryside is ruled by warlords and an organized network of criminals. Withou strong international support, Afghanistan will not escape the grip of these elements. The drug trade is subverting the task ofnational building, including the establishment of a stable economy and a reliable political process.
Nasir also makes this important point:
Although the price of heroin varies from time to time and place to place, there is a great deal of money to be made in the trade. The irony is that nearly all the money from the drug business goes to smugglers, dealers, and corrupt officials. Poppy farmers earn just enough to get by.
The success of the anti-narcotics effort will depend in part on increasing awareness among poppy farmers. To most of them, poppy is just a cash crop - they are not aware of the devastation caused by heroin and other drugs. It would be difficult to find a drug addict in the areas where poppy is planted. If one talks with farmers about the need to eradicate the popoppy, they usually say, "For us it is not dangerous."
The Christian Science Monitor, which has long been well regarded for its coverage of foreign news, has been a notable exception to the mainstream press norm by doing some decent reporting on Afghanistan, even after the conventional phase of the war was completed. For instance:
Bumper year for Afghan poppies Christian Science Monitor 07/24/03
Afghan farmers are producing a bumper crop of poppies this year, despite a ban imposed by President Hamid Karzai's government, and just three years after the Taliban clamped down on cultivation.
Theresurgence of this plant - used to make heroin - could unravel the relationships between warlords and the US military that have brought a modicum of peace to Afghanistan.
Poppy cultivation could not happen without the knowledge of powerful warlords who still control most of Afghanistan with their loyal militias. Sources say warlords, commanders, and corrupt officials buy opium from the farmers and provide safe passage to drug barons, who smuggle out either raw opium or refined heroin processed in makeshift factories. ...
When they were in power in Afghanistan, the Taliban outlawed opium cultivation in 2000, saying that it is banned in Islam. The move was designed to placate international critics of the regime. However, behind the scenes the Taliban military commanders made manifold profits by selling stockpiles asprices skyrocketed.
After the Taliban ouster, Afghan farmers started to grow opium again. In 2002, around 3,400 metric tons of opium was produced in Afghanistan. Present estimates for 2003 suggest production levels might reach close to 4,000 metric tons.
And the Taliban now are encouraging farmers to return to the crop, sanctioning it as a jihad against the West.
Note that this was in 2003. The current crop, as the LA Times piece says, is much larger.
The American strategy in Afghanistan was captive to the Cold War notion held dear by the Bush administration's holy warriors that terrorism is primarily a matter of state sponsorship. So the strategy there focused on achieving regime change in Kabul as quickly as possible. Combined with the Republicans' seemingly endless faith in proxy forces, that translated into buying off local warlords with big sacks of money. But now that policy has evolved into making the US forces in Afghanistan heavily dependent on the warlords, who effectively prevent the central government from exercising power in most of the country and also promote the heroin crop.
Where Taliban go to find warm beds and recruits Christian Science Monitor 12/11/04
With a bitter winter chill and the largest US ground offensive in nearly two years afoot in Afghanistan, Taliban commander Maulvi Pardes Akhund and his fighters are cheered by the warm reception and accommodations in a refugee camp for Afghans here. [my emphasis]
Say what? We are having the largest US ground offensive in two years in Afghanistan? Funny, that doesn't seem to be front-page news for most papers. But it's typical of the kind of neglect the Afghan War has received from our American "press corps." They're hardly covering it, which means among other things that they are particularly reliant on Pentagon briefings and press releases on events there. And those are, shall we say, often less than candid.
While Islamabad says it is doing everything it can to rein in the Taliban movement, a coalition of extremist religious parties controls the provincial government and around 300,000 Afghan refugees still live here. That makes it simple for the resurgent militia to blend in and difficult for the Army to crack down.
"Balochistan has always been, and is still, a second home to the Taliban," says a Pakistan-based Western diplomat. "It has served as second headquarters after Kandahar during the Taliban's rule and now it is providing a new lease on life to its guerrilla warfare against the US and its western allies." ...
Encompassing 43 percent of Pakistan's territory, Balochistan's expanse and location make it an ideal place for the Taliban to regroup. The province is a gateway to southern Afghanistan provinces like Kandahar and the opium-producing province of Helmand.
Maybe we should call Afghanistan another "catastropic success."
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