Posted on 11/24/2003 4:11:37 AM PST by witnesstothefall
American forces in Afghanistan are planning an offensive against the next opium crop, predicted to be the country's biggest ever, after calculating that drugs are now al-Qaida's main source of income. A senior American official in Kabul told the Guardian that current British efforts to temper Afghanistan's opium output had had "absolutely no impact" on the amount of opium produced since the fall of the Taliban two years ago.
According to separate reports by the UN and the CIA, about 3,600 tonnes of opium resin were produced this year in an unprecedented 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. The crop earned the country's poppy farmers and traffickers some £2bn.
This year's harvest was up on last year's bumper poppy crop - the first since the Taliban's fall - despite two devastating crop diseases, a ham-fisted government eradication campaign and British-led efforts to train local police and provide poppy farmers with alternative livelihoods at an estimated cost of £65m.
"The Brits will stay in the lead, but we're facing the fact that their efforts have had no impact on opium tonnage whatsoever," the American official said. "Meanwhile we're seeing that this issue affects our counter-terrorism interests: it's become more and more clear that the principal source of financing for al-Qaida and the Taliban is Afghan drugs."
According to the plan, America would persuade a moderate Muslim ally, either Turkey or a Balkan state, to deploy some 400 soldiers to Afghanistan to provide security for a similar number of Afghan counter-narcotics police. Sweeping the country from south to north, the eradication team would arrive in each province during the two-week window in the opium poppy's growth cycle when it can be ploughed up without regenerating.
US intelligence sources believe this would serve the dual purpose of destroying at least 25% of the poppies and flushing out many Taliban and al-Qaida operatives.
"This is going to be the biggest frickin' pheasant drive you've ever seen," the American official said.
A British diplomat in Kabul yesterday confirmed the American plan, but questioned whether a foreign force could be deployed in time for the coming harvest. "To start eradicating in the south, you'd have to be ready by February, which looks unlikely," the diplomat said. "If we know anything about this country, it's that everything takes time."
Washington's attention to Afghanistan's drug production represents a shift in its conduct of the war on terror. Previously, it left counter-narcotics to its European allies, chiefly Britain, 95% of whose heroin derives from Afghan opium.
British and Afghan officials in Kabul privately complain that their efforts have been compromised by the US military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida. America employs local warlords to prosecute its war, including many who are allegedly involved in opium production. US special forces in southern Hilmand province told the Guardian they routinely went on patrol through opium fields, but had no orders to interfere.
Washington's change of tack is less a response to Britain's failed counter-narcotics effort than to its own failure to quell the Taliban and its allies, analysts in Kabul say. During the past year, the Taliban has reorganised and returned from its rear-bases in Pakistan, and now loosely controls pockets of south-eastern Afghanistan. Its influence extends across much of the prime poppy-growing land in Hilmand, Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces; including the fiefs of many of America's supposedly loyal allies.
Poppy-growing areas in the north are proving a similar draw for America's enemies. According to western intelligence sources, opium production in northern Badhakshan province is now heavily controlled by Hizb-e-Islami, a fundamentalist group allied to al-Qaida and the Taliban and linked to Chechen rebels.
Badhakshan's opium production rocketed by 55% this year, making it the third most productive poppy province.
Compromised
"America's efforts to defeat the Taliban through local proxies has failed on the back of some very compromised intelligence," said Vikram Parekh of the International Crisis Group thinktank. "The Taliban will be defeated by good governance and law enforcement, and that includes counter-narcotics."
Failing drastic measures of the kind America is planning, most analysts expect that Afghanistan's next opium crop will exceed 1999's record haul of 4,500 tonnes. "There's no doubt we're about to see a record-breaking crop," said Abdul Ghaus, the beleaguered chief government counter-narcotics officer in Jallalabad, capital of Afghanistan's most productive poppy-province, Nangarhar. "The British are doing nothing to prevent it."
Outside Jallalabad, neat mud villages and tidy plots offer an Arcadian vision of courteous farmers and their sons sowing poppy seeds in the gentle morning sun. Cracking open a pile of yellow bulbs to reach the precious seed within, Mohammed Jan was preparing to sow three of his nine jeribs - the Afghan unit of land, denoting a fifth of a hectare - with opium. "Last year the government destroyed my crop, but never again," he said to the delight of local children. "If they bring their tractors, I will fight them with my sword and my gun."
Mr Jan, who had grown opium his entire life, said that if he could not continue with the crop, his eight children would starve. Yet he had no debt and wore a heavy gold ring. He expected to produce at least 21kg (46lb) of opium resin on his three jeribs, earning £5,000 at current prices, in a country where the average monthly wage is £12.
"These people are not starving peasants," said the US official in Kabul. "They are small landowners. If they've grown opium before, they're not poor. There's nothing that could replace the monetary value of poppies, so there's only one good reason for farmers not to grow it - it's against the law. Sorry, but if we can't get alternative livelihoods to keep up with law enforcement, that's just tough."
Yet, if that appeared true of Mr Jan, it was not true of his near-neighbour, Mr Nayamatullah, who may be more typical of the 1.7 million poppy farmers. "Growing poppy may not be right, but it's the only means of survival we have," he said, flicking poppy seed across his single jerib.
Last year, Mr Nayamatullah accepted a government compensation offer of £200, and grew wheat instead of opium, but he was paid only £50. He and his brothers found occasional work as labourers but were compelled to borrow £750 from an opium dealer, in return promising to sell their next crop at half the market-price. If the crop is good, they will make only £875, and will have to borrow again.
"What choice have we?" asked Mr Nayamatullah. "When my neighbour ran out of money last winter, he collapsed his house on himself and his children for shame. Must I do the same?"
Few analysts dispute that Afghanistan needs more forthright measures to counter its opium explosion. Yet a blanket eradication scheme would risk beggaring thousands of farmers like Mr Nayamatullah - to America's cost. "The Taliban are operating in the south-east because they have support there," said ICG's Mr Parekh. "By destroying opium crops without offering any economic support, America could end up turning virtually the entire population against it."
It would be better, Mr Parekh said, to start with Afghanistan's rather more powerful drug barons. "There are members of the government and their family deeply involved in the drug business. Everyone knows who they are, and that goes right up to cabinet level. Prosecute them, take out the big fish. That way you'd solve a lot of this country's other problems too."
This is 'serious'.
Just say,..."No"....!!
/sarcsam
Which will make the other 75% left over an even more lucrative crop.
Oh yeah, that would cause the Pakistan government to fall. Not to mention the serious business repercussions throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.
Better to spend $2 billion on further military adventures and many American lives in what's certain to be a futile gesture.
I predict a great deal of handwringing and posturing over this in the coming months. But it's a sure thing that the heroin will continue to flow. Too much money is at stake, too many powerful players stand to lose, and the entire region is a narcoeconomy..
Supply and demand is a bitch.
Then 'salt' the 'poppy' lands!
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