The US, Afghanistan, and opium
I don’t write about foreign policy on this blog unless the foreign policy involves a fair amount of drug policy. President Obama, as most of you know, has plans to greatly increase the US troop presence in Afghanistan. It’s a very complicated situation over there and the reasons he focuses on are a.) depriving the Taliban and Bin Laden a safe haven to train for and plan terrorist attacks on the US, and b.) because Afghanistan is a “narco-state” and, of course, narcotics are bad and the profits from their production fund terrorism. I won’t get into reason “a” here other than to say that the job of controlling that country has been tried before most notably by the British in the 1800’s and the Soviets late in the 20th century. Both failed miserably.
As for the second reason… let me share a true story I read recently. There was a poor Afghani farmer who, in order to feed his family, cut a deal with the local warlord, tribal leader, or whatever you want to call him. The warlord would advance the farmer money he needed to get his opium crop in and the resulting opium would be sold to the warlord for an agreed upon price. As insurance the money would be spent only to grow opium he demanded the farmer’s daughter be collateral - no harvest - the warlord gets the guy’s daughter.
Months later the crop is thriving but before harvest time US troops come along and torch the field and so the warlord claims, and receives, the daughter. Now let me ask you; How does this make the farmer feel? Do you think he might harbor some resentment for the US? Since this raid did nothing to stem the flow of opium to the west do you think this was a productive use of US troops? Do you think we make lots of friends by such actions?
What if we had simply bought the crop from the farmer and any other farmer who wanted to grow the stuff? We could use a low-cost source for this useful drug from which morphine, codeine, and other narcotic drugs are made from.
Had we done that do you think the farmer might like the US more? Do you think the world would be a better place if Afghanistan’s opium crop went into making opiates to kill pain rather than to fund warlords and terrorists?
Now I see an article in the German newsmagazine Der Speigel headlined“Top NATO Commander Orders Troops to Kill All Opium Dealers” The magazine has obtained classified documents in which NATO top commander and US General John Craddock, a long time advocate of steering the international forces in Afghanistan toward fighting the drug export industry, issues a “guidance” advising NATO troops to use deadly force against those involved in the drug industry, even if there is no evidence that the person being killed is actually involved in the insurgency.
I fear that the troops sent to Afghanistan will soon be diverted from their original mission of fighting the Taliban and spend their time killing farmers and burning their crops in a futile effort to stamp out the opium trade. I fear that this policy will result in even greater hatred of Americans by the Afghani population and sympathizers in the entire middle east. I fear that, after several years pass, the US death toll grows, and the costs continue to rise, America will be desperately looking for a way to get out of Afghanistan.
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