Blair's latest expedition is a Lawrence of Arabia fantasy
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1699409,00.html
The occupation of Afghanistan served only to turn the Taliban from opponents to
supporters of the opium trade
At last, the war on terror meets the war on drugs. The British government has
Osama bin Laden in the same frame as an 11-year-old girl on a Glasgow street.
Politics is truly holistic.
Yesterday's London conference on Afghanistan purported to search for a
"five-year plan" for the country. Such a search has only one destination, opium.
This is not some minor byproduct of the great war on militant Islam. Opium
constitutes over a third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and virtually
all its recordable exports. Everyone is involved in the business, from warlords
to the resurgent Taliban to members of Hamid Karzai's government. Since the US
and Britain seized the country in 2001, 87% of world trade in opium is ascribed
to Afghanistan, mostly consumed by western economies.
Iraq since its occupation has yet to produce as much oil as it did under Saddam
Hussein. The US cannot find petrol even for Iraq's cars. By contrast,
Afghanistan's opium output is breaking all records. This year's crop is expected
by the UN to top the 1999 record of 4,500 tonnes. Britain's Department for
International Development has been "in the lead" on Kabul's drugs policy since
2002. The policy has enriched tens of thousands of Afghans, tax-free, and must
be the jewel in the British aid crown. The victims are on Glasgow housing
estates.
The talk in London yesterday was of punishing Afghans for growing so
successfully what Britons consume so eagerly. When the Taliban were in charge
things were different. The regime stopped virtually all poppy cultivation in
2001, a fact verified by UN monitors. Output that year was negligible. The
Taliban's Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani pleaded at the time for western aid for
distressed farmers, whose income from substituted wheat and vegetables was a
quarter that from poppies. But he declared that "whether we get assistance or
not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country." There is no
evidence that this ascetic policy was not sincere.
The Taliban were effective. The price of opium in dealers' warehouses promptly
rose tenfold. Heroin became expensive on European markets and consumption
slackened. Had Afghan supply collapsed, production would have shifted elsewhere,
assuming demand remained high. But had demand been attacked at just that moment
of high prices, there was a brief window of opportunity to curb the heroin
pandemic. There was even talk of legalising an Afghan crop for medicinal
morphine, as with crops in Turkey and India.
Instead British and US policy towards Afghan opium after the 2001 invasion was
totally cynical. As a covert reward to the warlords for supporting Karzai, the
occupiers turned a blind eye to the 2002 replanting. Since the market for any
unregulated global product tends to be near perfect, the prospect of rocketing
profits brought an unprecedented acreage of Afghanistan into production.
Twenty-eight of 32 provinces were instantly under cultivation. Refining
factories were set up, keeping more profit in the country and creating jobs.
Europe was soon swamped with cheap heroin. A Glasgow 11-year-old could buy it
for £10 a packet. Afghanistan's economy is now wholly reliant on opium as a
result of the west's ending of Taliban crop suppression and refusal to curb
consumption. The policy was deliberate.
Britain is now pretending otherwise by sending the army to Helmand province,
Afghanistan's poppy-growing area. Its Herculean objective is to stamp out both
the opium trade and Taliban infiltration. According to the defence secretary,
John Reid, the war on terror is "absolutely interlinked to countering
narcotics". By eradicating poppies in Helmand, Britain hopes to drain the swamp
on which terrorism floats.
This policy was enunciated last November by the US in Kabul, even as they
tolerated the opium warlords in the north. Troops would sweep south, eradicating
25% of the potential harvest with Colombia-style crop spraying. The US state
department is already advertising for "aviation eradication officers". This is
despite the reported view of the UN in Kabul that the last £65m spent on
eradication had "absolutely no impact" on poppy output. Reid is about to blow
another £20m on it.
The occupation of Afghanistan has achieved the near impossible. It has turned
the Taliban from opponents to supporters of the opium trade. This means that
British troops will face a lethal alliance of growers, druglords and suicide
bombers as they try to defy the global market economy. A local anti-narcotics
policeman gets $90 a month if he is lucky. A kilo of refined heroin at the
Afghan border is about $900. The task of Britain's air assault brigade is
somehow to reverse that tenfold differential.
The only possible consequence of the Helmand expedition is to drive growers and
profiteers further into the arms of the Taliban. This will subsidise anarchy in
a part of the world where the west has never been able to assert its will.
Government policy is handing the region to terrorism on a plate. It is pursuing
a vicious circle.
The irony is that Afghanistan does offer a sort of chance to resolve the
so-called wars on terrorism and drugs. The booming market for opium is fuelled
by demand in Europe. This was stimulated in Britain by the worst act ever passed
by parliament, the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. By outlawing heroin supply under
prescription it boosted consumption from some 1,000 registered users before the
act to an estimated 300,000 users today.
If the government tackled demand by repealing the 1971 act and replacing
imprisonment with treatment, demand would be bound to fall. If demand fell, so
eventually would the price differential between poppies and other crops. Afghan
growers could more easily be weaned onto alternative crops, a task impossible at
present prices. They would be less in need of Taliban protection from British
troops and the Taliban would have less money to splash on suicide bombers and
al-Qaida donations. Counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism would describe a
virtuous circle.
Tony Blair said he would not "walk away" from the opium issue. But he is walking
away. Lost in some Lawrence of Arabia fantasy, he is walking the fields of
Helmand when he should be patrolling the streets of Glasgow. Offered a virtuous
circle, he has opted for a vicious one.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1699409,00.html
LMAO@ Lost in some Lawrence of Arabia fantasy.
I'm so glad I found an interest in politics. The way they perform, and the
things they get up to sure beats the comedy programs on TV.
Lord Cerne Abbas
We shall go on to the end, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall
never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island
or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then we would carry on the
struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and
might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
To rebel is right, to disobey is a duty, to act is necessary !
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/identity.html
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/mylinks.html
http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/
.
Relevant Pages
- Re: what a waste
... And you're saying I do? ... Afghanistan irrigation water in the 1950s and electricity in the 1970s ... Taliban offered to surrender Osama bin Laden to a third country for trial, ... to stop opium traffic from Afghanistan to the US and UK. ...
(soc.culture.irish) - Re: Cut and Run Part II
... fight with the Russians to protect Islamic Afghanistan. ... The Taliban is indiginous with no particular international ambitions ... The international terrorism which came out of the Middle East always ... The US is a distance target and hard to get at. ...
(soc.retirement) - Re: U.S. Sets Fight in the Poppies to Stop Taliban
... U.S. Sets Fight in the Poppies to Stop Taliban ... Afghanistan -- American commanders are planning to cut off the ... $300 million a year from Afghanistan's opium trade, ... That is enough, the Americans say, to sustain ...
(soc.retirement) - Re: Why are we fighting the TALIBAN? To Prevent Them From Taking Over Afghanistan And Providing Safe
... Afghanistan, Pakistan, India - and the Problem of ... to Pakistan, Iran and other countries. ... A second force to contend with, the Taliban was officially ... against terrorism in Central Asia. ...
(alt.politics) - Re: U.S. Sets Fight in the Poppies to Stop Taliban
... U.S. Sets Fight in the Poppies to Stop Taliban ... Afghanistan -- American commanders are planning to cut off the ... $300 million a year from Afghanistan's opium trade, ... That is enough, the Americans say, to sustain ...
(soc.retirement) |
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