KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan farmers now planting opium poppies will probably reap a harvest comparable to this year's record crop, in part because insurgents are preventing effective counternarcotics work, officials said yesterday.
Planting is under way in southern regions responsible for the bulk of the estimated 6,100 tons of Afghan opium produced in the 2005-6 growing season.
Drug production has skyrocketed since a U.S.-led offensive toppled the Taliban regime five years ago for giving refuge to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda camps. Last spring's poppy harvest accounted for 92 percent of the global opium supply and was enough to make 610 tons of heroin - more than the world's addicts consume in a year.
What we have here is the consequences of the War on Iraq (Brown People) on the War on Some Drugs. Apparently all the fighting and killing makes it difficult to put a dent in all that profitable and terrorist-funding opium.
Imagine being a poverty-stricken Afghani with a family to feed in a war-torn country. You know that opium is an illegal crop, yet if you plant food crops you will be unable to make ends meet. Opium is where the money is at and you know that there is no effort being made to eradicate the opium crops.
What would you do? Would you continue to do the "right" thing and grow the food crops and watch your family starve or are you going to grow the profitable opium crops?
My solution to all this lunacy would be to shut down the counter-narcotic units and the aerial spraying programs. This has done nothing but devestate the environment and harm innocent civilian by-standers. Let the Afghan farmers produce their opium and find a legal market for it. With AIDS ravaging the African continent pain medications are going to be absolutely essential. But for any poliician or group to propose this solution would take a great deal of courage that nobody seems to have.
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