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The Taliban has claimed control of Helmand. And opium always provided a significant part of the Taliban's income. From the Mail & Guardian Online, with thanks to DFS:
Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where about 7 000 British troops are based, is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest drugs supplier, cultivating more opium than entire countries such as Burma, Morocco or even Colombia, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.The region was largely responsible for a huge increase last year in Afghanistan's opium-poppy harvest, the origin of most of the heroin on the streets of Britain and mainland Europe. And Helmand's poppy harvest is expected to increase again this year, according to the latest annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
"Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic and go a long way to bring security to the region," said Antonio Maria Costa, the UN agency's executive director.
The report will not be welcome reading for the British government. Five years ago, Tony Blair said Britain would take responsibility for overseeing Afghanistan's anti-narcotics programme. Last year, Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, said an increase in the opium harvest planted before British troops arrived in Helmand was one thing; a further rise this year -- now predicted by UN and British officials -- would be quite another.
"Drugs and the insurgency are intrinsically linked," a British official admitted on Tuesday. British military commanders, meanwhile, warn that attempts to eradicate the poppy crop without providing alternative incomes will simply increase hostility to foreign troops and increase support for the Taliban.
A United States proposal to spray the poppy crop was vetoed by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai.
Why?
Posted by Robert at June 27, 2007 7:07 AM
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Carpet bombing will wipe out the taliban and the opium. Paying the farmers not to grow opium until they can plant an alternate crop would be cheaper than dragging this Afghanistan campaign out indefinitely.
Posted by: ImNoDhimmi![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 27, 2007 7:43 AM
Why not spray? That would push the farmers into the hands of the Taliban?
Prohibitions, whether of drugs, alcohol, coffee or cigarettes, create a situation that favors the most violent, the most ruthless and the most lawless. In Chicago during alcohol prohibition of 395 bombins, exactly zero were prosecuted.
Drug prohibition is fueling violence and lawlessness from Afghanistan to northern Mexico. The solution is to re-legalize drugs and take the hyper-profits out of the drug trade. That's the only way to de-fund the gangs, the thugs and the radicals.
Let's focus on people who have problems with drugs, rather than continue the attempt to stop the trade. The war on drugs is about 100 years old.
Posted by: Jabba the Tutt at June 27, 2007 7:49 AM
...the opium farmers are the Taliban....spray away....if they come out to fight ...so be it...
Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 27, 2007 8:13 AM
Smooth Hamid Karzai, oily Hamid Karzai. He applauded, was enthusiastic aboutMahathir Mohamed's speech to the I.O.C. a few years ago, the one in which Mohamed insisted that the world's Muslims had to use their brains, in order not to investigate the nature of the brain or DNA or of the atom or the origins of the universe, but only -- the only thing he meant by "science" -- to acquire military technology, and to defeat, among others, "the Jews." Interviewed just after, Karzai said he found the speech deeply impressive.
His government is famously corrupt. Oh, not as corrupt as that of the Al-Saud. Not as corrupt as that of Mubarak. Not as corrupt as that of Arafat and his successors and collaborators in the so-called "Palestinian" "Authority." But corrupt. And the American and NATO forces are tearing their hair out.
But he wants, he wants, he wants. A year or two ago he was lamenting all the money spent in Iraq because he thought it should go to Afghanistan. He wants, he wants, he wants
And he wants the Western powers to prop up his government -- why? -- but to fight exactly as he wishes them to fight, obeying Marquess of Queensberry rules that will only cause more Western casualties, and that make no sense in the Afghani context.
He wants, he wants, he wants.
Afghanistan can be controlled, as much as it can be controlled, from afar. There is no need for such a NATO presence, that will only be a waste, and a cause for intra-NATO tensions, and will be as ineffectual, in promoting Infidel aims, as is the business in Tarbaby Iraq.
The belief or desire to remake Afghanistan -- see the observations on this American polypragmonic impulse, an impulse born of naivete, Yankee-can-do spirit misapplied to things of the spirit rather than to objects one can indeed improve, and a reluctance, even fear, to dare to backwardness and social injustice (felt in Afghanistan mainly by women, held in permanent thrall, for there are almost no non-Muslims left in the country -- the Jews and Hindus described by Robert Byron in "The Road to Oxiana" all left, some before, some during, the rule of the Taliban). as the handful of Hindus and Jews and Christians whom Robert Byron once described have, since the Taliban days, disappeared entirely) of dealing with Islam and the problem of Islam,
Posted by: Hugh at June 27, 2007 8:24 AM
Radioactive poppies produce no heroin.
Posted by: ooddballz at June 27, 2007 8:25 AM
"Radioactive poppies produce no heroin.
Posted by: ooddballz"
....ha!....
at June 27, 2007 8:35 AM
find out which countries are using the most heroin then clamp down on those countries. america included. maybe we need to rethink the "war on drugs". we may have to legalise ALL illegal drugs, under strict government controlled drug facilities, not "de-criminalised" as in parts of europe.
then the US government can regulate, control and manufacture ourselves the heroin input to the USA and Europe.
at teh moment this "war on drugs" is fuelling a multi-billion dollar criminal and terrorist element.
yes we can allow the farmers in afganistan to harvest drugs, as long as it's controlled and the money is funnelled into non criminal pockets.
this way we can win the hearts and minds of the afgan people whos real income is from the opium poppy.
Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at June 27, 2007 8:49 AM
Buy the whole damn crop, it's one helluva lot cheaper and safer than any other alternative, and its not like it doesn't have plenty of perfectly legal uses. Destroys funding sources for the taliban, tears a great big hole in the international drugs trade - so what are we waiting for?
Posted by: thomas ato at June 27, 2007 9:25 AM
Might it be possible that the west has ALLOWED them to profit from opium? Maybe it was some sort of behind closed door trade-off.
You cannot convince me that if the government wanted to get rid of the poppy fields, they would be unable.
So, they are there because our government has left them there.
Posted by: The Goobs at June 27, 2007 10:34 AM
Tell Karzai- TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Freekin Bad.
I have been advocating the Industrial application of ROUNDUP in Afghanistan for some time. Especially those fields known or suspected of benefiting the Taliban and their supporters.
OK.OK.OK. so you have to spray the whole Country. Just trying a little PCness.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at June 27, 2007 12:38 PM
They never got rid of these fields, a PROBLEM! That cannot end. Hey, maybe it's not the oil, poppies, poppies.........america make us rich to kill you...poppies......
Posted by: MZ at June 27, 2007 1:49 PM
I have been advocating the Industrial application of ROUNDUP in Afghanistan for some time. Especially those fields known or suspected of benefiting the Taliban and their supporters.
Doesn't anyone use Napalm anymore?
Posted by: walterc at June 27, 2007 1:53 PM
The Opium fields of Eastern Afghanist are situated in the mountain ranges known as the 'Hindu Kush' means 'Hindu Slaughter' or 'Hindu Killer'.
History reveals that until 1000 A.D. the area of Hindu Kush was a full part of Hindu cradle.
More likely, the mountain range was deliberately named as 'Hindu Slaughter' by the Moslem conquerors, as a lesson to the future generations of Indians.
However Indians in general, and Hindus in particular are completely oblivious to this tragic genocide. This article also looks into the reasons behind this ignorance.
I have done a few articles about islam and narcotics
Here are a few
KORAN verus POPPY NO-GOOD
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/02/koran-verus-poppy-no-good.html
POPPY NO-GOOD pt1
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/02/poppy-no-good_01.html
POPPY NO-GOOD pt2
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/02/p0ppy-no-good-pt2.html
POPPY NO-GOOD pt3
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/02/poppy-no-good.html
at June 27, 2007 3:21 PM
thomas ato-
I've been emailing this sugestion to the Bush administration for several years now.
We buy it, we burn it.
No heroin then gets onto the market.
And the farmers are posperous.
Not impoverished, resentful fodder ripe for joining in the surrounding terrorism.
The farmers can then fix up their homes, educate their kids, try other plantings (amaranth, etc.) with the profits, and thus they don't have to rely on the Taliban or mere mafia warlords for their pay or their opium crop protection.
Our leaders' simple-mindedness is staggering.
If we do not control it, it is out of control.
(Same with our own borders. Something else I have ebeen reminding El Presidente Jorge.)
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 27, 2007 5:46 PM
....buy it all...sure...then convert the entire bundle into bundles of morphine and codeine which will be greatly appreciated by the wounded victims of Islamic terror.....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 28, 2007 6:45 AM
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