Destroy Afghanistan’s Poppy Fields Now

North Star Writers Group ^ | April 7, 2008 | Gregory D. Lee

[Invisigoth]

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, an essential ingredient of heroin. The vast majority of Afghan/Pakistan-refined heroin is sold in Western Europe and Great Britain to feed their growing number of heroin addicts. Only between 5 percent and 15 percent reaches the U.S. The production is so immense that it has even affected Afghan food supplies. According to the International Monetary Fund, opium production is worth $1 billion to Afghan farmers. A whopping 12 percent of the Afghan population is involved in opium production.

Opium continues to be the major source of funding for militants in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorist network in particular. This symbiotic relationship is especially true since other sources of funding through fraudulent charity front organizations and wealthy Saudi benefactors have been dismantled and scrutinized through President Bush’s Executive Order 13224 and the passage of the Patriot Act. So why not directly attack this source of drug proceeds that finances terrorist training and events the same way?

[Renfield]

If the Opium crop was destroyed, where would the CIA get its “walkin’-around” money?

[verity]

Reverend Wright?

[NCBraveheart]

I have been wondering the same thing for a long time. If we fought the Axis like this we might be speaking German today, Bush and his people are spineless

[flaglady47]

Because Bush won’t do it. It’s the compassionate part of his conservatism, don’t ya know. Can’t let those poor farmers have no means of making a living. Instead, make it a living h*ll for the heroin addicts.

[Mr Rogers]

If we go after the poppy crop, millions will join the Taliban. Right now, it is the only source of money for many small farmers. They don’t have alternative crops to sell.

They don’t have food stamps - destroy their crop and you starve their families.

[Flintlock]

Sheer idiocy. As usual, I’m afraid.
Buy it up. $ as the going rate, whatever that is.
ALL OF IT.
Use what’s needed to make LEGAL meds in the drug industry. Destroy what’s left.
Repeat as necessary, SHOOT whoever won’t cooperate.
It would work, you know.

[DieHard the Hunter]

An interesting article written by somebody in a position to know. I was with him 100% until I read this bit:

> NATO forces in Afghanistan need to eradicate the farmers and heroin laboratories in addition to the poppy. They need to poison the wells and tear up the roads that have increased production.

And then this bit:

> If the tables were reversed, poppy farmers wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to us. I wouldn’t believe a word these people tell me about the whereabouts of terrorist leaders, as they will say whatever they think you want to hear in order to survive. They view inaction by U.S. and NATO forces as utter weakness and ineptness, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill all the foreign soldiers on Afghan soil if given the opportunity.

And then this bit:

The only thing these farmers understand is substantial, unrelenting blunt force that will subside only when they decide to go along with the program: Grow something other than poppy and accept the rule of the central government in Kabul.

I don’t think there is alot to be gained by killing subsistence farmers — the end does not justify the means in this case.

This is the sort of “solution” that was tried by our enemies in WW-II, in Poland, the Balkans, and elsewhere: it didn’t work then, it merely steeled the resolve of the Resistence and the Partizans, and led to a whole bunch of senior German officers to stand trial for war crimes at Nurnburg and ultimately swing from a rope.

Destroy their poppies: definitely. And the labs. Hang their drug lords after waterboarding them for as much information as can possibly be extracted.

Occupy the country and provide alternative crops that must be raised in place of poppies. But killing civilians is always a poor idea, and an immoral one.

I for one would not support that.

[Nathan Zachary]

I doubt afghan farmers make “billions”. more like a few hundred bucks a year. Pay them off and teach them to grow something else.
Who cares if “billions’ are lost to the terrorists local economy.

[microgood]

If bombing aircraft factories in Germany during World War II to halt aerial bombing raids on London made sense then, why not destroy poppy fields that fill terrorist coffers today? In two words: Political correctness.

What an idiotic comparison. Most of these farmers are starving to death and have to borrow money from the smugglers to grow the crops. If we burn their crops, they have to sell their children to pay back the smugglers.

Winning the terrorist war and drug war in Afghanistan are mutually exclusive. We need to stay focused on why we are there and not turn this into another Somalia.

[knarf]

This guy is chewing coca leaves ...

He blames "PC" for the reason poppy feilds are not eradicated, then uses PC as the means to ratioanlize the destruction of poppy feilds.

I don't know if it is me, or some epiphany has occured, but the last few weeks of reading these reports seems to more and more reveal this schizophrenic form of writing.

The scriptures declare, "As a man thinketh, so is he".

Scarey.

[ovrtaxt]

Spray the poppy fields with bacon grease.

[Straight Vermonter]

Afghanistan: Saffron Could Help Wean Farmers Off Opium Poppies

A honeybee buzzes above a saffron flower (file photo)

An essential part of Kabul's strategy to eradicate opium-poppy cultivation is to help Afghan farmers grow alternative crops. Some critics argue that few crops can earn Afghan farmers enough money to be a realistic alternative to opium. But in the western province of Herat this week, a provincial agriculture official announced that he may have one answer that can help.

PRAGUE, June 2, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Saffron is more than an aromatic spice for rice, soups, and meat dishes. Dried filaments from the saffron flower have been used for thousands of years to make perfumes, colored dyes, and even herbal medicines.

In Herat, an agriculture expert says saffron also could help wean farmers away from growing opium poppies.

Bashir Ahmad Ahmadi is the head of agriculture administration in the western Afghan province. Having just completed the test phase of a farming project there, he is now urging farmers in his region to grow the saffron flower -- Crocus Sativus Linneaus -- instead of opium poppies.

"Herati saffron has beaten the international record for the most productive farm yield. I can confirm this," Ahmadi says. "The world's top producers of saffron are able to get farm yields of about 8 kilograms of saffron per hectare. But the Herati saffron fields have been even more productive [than that]."

Painstaking Work

The red, thread-like filaments of saffron are actually dried stigmas from the saffron flower. Each flower contains only three stigmas. And those must be separated from the rest of the flower by hand. It takes more than 150,000 flowers to produce enough filaments for 1 kilogram of saffron.

Farmers plant saffron flowers as spherical bulbs -- or "corms" -- rather than as seeds. Ahmadi says the initial investment needed for so many flower bulbs, as well as the labor-intensive harvesting and production processes -- make saffron a difficult crop for Afghan farmers to start growing without help from the government in Kabul.

Still, he tells RFE/RL that hundreds of farmers in Herat Province are now interested in the crop after hearing how Ahmadi's 40-hectare test plot produced more than 320 kilograms of saffron.

"The farmers of Herat, especially from the Ghoryan and Pashtunzarghon districts, have been coming to us asking for saffron bulbs," Ahmadi says."They say they are unable to buy the flower bulbs themselves to get started. We have received hundreds of applications asking for these bulbs."

But despite the success of the test project for saffron in western Afghanistan, Ahmadi warns that better processing and marketing methods are needed to ensure Afghan saffron farmers receive a fair market price for the product.

Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, says he agrees.

"It is not sufficient to produce a crop, no matter how high your yields may be," Rubin says. "You have to be able to produce it at a cost that is competitive on the international market. And you have to be able to produce it at a quality that is competitive on the international market."

Looking For Help

Rubin tells RFE/RL that saffron is just one of several crops with a high value for a small volume -- something he says is necessary to provide a significant cash income to Afghan farmers. With the right infrastructure development, he says Afghan farmers eventually should be able to make good incomes from other spices, too, like cumin, or from essential oils that are distilled from plants.

"The problem of the developmental component of counternarcotics is not just finding some single other crop," Rubin says. "It means finding another basis for the economy of Afghanistan. It means many other crops -- which requires marketing and storage, road building, electricity, improved water supplies. Other industries go along with that, such as packaging and processing and so on, to create other kinds of employment."

Rubin says the lack of packaging and marketing facilities in neighboring Iran and Pakistan-administered Kashmir make it more difficult for saffron farmers there to get a fair market price for their harvests.

One example is the Khorasan region of Iran, just west of Herat. Khorasan is one of the world's largest saffron producing regions. Up to 85 percent of Iranian saffron is exported in bulk to Europe before it is processed or packaged. As a result, about 60 percent of Iranian saffron is distributed internationally under trademarks from Spain or the United Arab Emirates.

Most importantly, whereas an Iranian farmer typically gets just a few hundred dollars for each kilogram of high-quality unpackaged saffron, the same Iranian-grown saffron -- repackaged in Spain or Italy -- can sell for more than $2,000 per kilogram in the West.

Ahmadi agrees that Afghanistan must learn lessons from Iranian saffron producers and improve the way Afghan saffron is processed and packaged. He says that also would provide more legal jobs for seasonal farm workers.

(RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Rishteen Qadiri in Herat and Sultan Sarwar in Prague contributed to this story.)

[swatbuznik]

Why don’t we design a virus that kills off poppies and make it look natural? After all, we created AIDS and other such diseases/sarc.

Actually, I’m a little serious about the first part.

[Sax]

Buy it up.

At the price the Afghan farmers get for the raw crop, it wouldn't be fraction of the $ street value for the finished product.

Once you've got their ear, you can start to implement change, and as long as you keep your poppy buying price pegged at just above market value, you'll catch any surplus production.

People worried about putting clothes on their family and providing enough food on the table for the wife and kids, aren't worried about the cast off weaklings of a mega-rich society.

[Walmartian]

Why don’t we design a virus that kills off poppies and make it look natural? After all, we created AIDS and other such diseases/sarc.

Kudzu should do a very nice job.

[AdamSelene235]

Opium is a useful crop. Having suffered for a decade from chronic cough what I wouldn´t give for some old fashion laudanum at $0.50 a bottle instead of equally addictive Tussionex at $150 per bottle.

[coloradan]

Preserve funding for terrorists: Continue the Drug War!

Remember kids: High drug prices means lots of income to our enemies!

[rhombus]

I thought ethanol was driving up the price of corn. On the other hand, can we make gas out of poppies?

[coloradan]

Buy ALL of it at the going rate? Sounds like you want to support a cottage industry of a lot more people getting into the growing business, probably quite a few of whom would like to destroy America. And your mechanism simply funds them.