Via the NYT: Taliban Raise Poppy Production to a Record Again

Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2024 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.

[…]

What do you call a policy that spends billions of dollars, makes the problem that the policy is designed to address worse, and yet everyone involved in making that policy wants to expand? You call it the “War on Drugs.”

Misha Glenny, writing in WaPo has the latest in a long line of attempts to explain the failure that is the war on drugs: The Lost War:

Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion. And terrorist organizations such as the Taliban are using this money to expand their operations and buy ever more sophisticated weapons, threatening Western security.

That is exactly right.

There isn’t an easy alternative, I will grant, but the continuation of our current policy is as wrongheaded as it can be, if what one wants out of public policy is return on investment (i.e., for the money spent to actually accomplish something). We spend billions, and the problem only gets worse and the very metrics employed to measure the efficacy of the policies tell us that this is true. If we look at the availability of product, the street price and the hectares under cultivation, it is clear that the policies are utter failures. Yet, as one article put it, we are “addicted to failure” it would seem.

Not only are the current set of policies ineffective, but they make the situation worse by increasing the profits on these business radically. It is the very fact of prohibition that makes leaves, flowers and weeds into multi-billion dollar industries.

The answer that is always given in Washington is: just a little more money and we’ll get it right. However, this is objectively not true.

Of course, to make such suggestions usually results in scorn, because one is assumed to be pro-drugs if one takes this stance. Or, one is accused of wanting to expose the children of America to heroin usage. Indeed, as I have studied this policy over the years, it is clear that the main motivator seems to be protecting children and this is what has made, as Glenny notes, the war on drugs a “third rail” (the one that electrocutes you if you touch it) in America politics.

In Washington, the war on drugs has been a third-rail issue since its inauguration. It’s obvious why — telling people that their kids can do drugs is the kiss of death at the ballot box. But that was before 9/11. Now the drug war is undermining Western security throughout the world. In one particularly revealing conversation, a senior official at the British Foreign Office told me, “I often think we will look back at the War on Drugs in a hundred years’ time and tell the tale of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ This is so stupid.”

How right he is.

Indeed.

The references to international terrorism in this case are far from gratuitous. The fact of the matter is that drugs are an excellent source of funding that can easily arm a large number of persons, and arm them well. There is no doubt, for example, that the Taliban pre-9/11 was able to accrue cash via taxing poppy sales and the FARC in Colombia have been making tremendous profits off of the cocaine industry for over two decades. As a set of Marxist guerrillas one would have expected the end of the Cold War to have damaged their ability to continue fighting, yet instead they have grown and flourished since that time.

In regards to Afghanistan, I have argued for some time that the drug war was counter-productive to counter-terrorism policies and further recently noted a story about how the US government’s anti-drug zeal is seriously damaging our ability to make political progress in Afghanistan. Glenny makes a similar observation:

Docherty was quick to realize that the military push into northern Helmand province was going to run into serious trouble. The rumor was “that we were there to eradicate the poppy,” he said. “The Taliban aren’t stupid and so they said, ‘These guys are here to destroy your livelihood, so let’s take up arms against them.’ And it’s been a downward spiral since then.”

This is not a good situation, yet no one in Washington even wants to even discuss it (as Dan Drezner also notes).

Via the Chicago Tribune: Afghan opium poppy crop hits record

Afghanistan’s heroin-producing poppy crop set another record this season, despite intensified eradication efforts, the American ambassador said Tuesday.

Ambassador William Wood said preliminary data show that Afghan farmers harvested 457,135 acres of opium poppies this year, up from 407,715 acres last year. The growing industry fuels the Taliban, crime, addiction and government corruption.

Government-led eradication efforts destroyed about 49,420 acres of poppies this year, a “disappointing” outcome, Wood told reporters at his private residence overlooking Kabul.

I know that I am quite the fatalist on this point, but my guess is that there will be yet another record next year. And, even if we do start eradicating crops, I have no doubt that there will still be plenty of poppies to make all the heroin that the market will bear.

It is not surprising in the least, yet still depressing in the extreme, that the US government thinks that exporting the Andean coca-eradication model will actually lead to any appreciable change to the Afghanistan poppy situation. It is like copying the Oakland Raider’s offensive plan from last season because, after all, they did score a few touchdowns.

Via the BBC: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Afghan opium production ’soars’

Opium production in Afghanistan is soaring out of control, the annual UN report on illegal drugs says.

The World Drug Report says more than 90% of illegal opium, which is used to make heroin, comes from Afghanistan.

It says cultivation of opium poppies increased dramatically in the country, despite the presence of more than 30,000 international troops there.

The report says Afghanistan is unlikely to regain real security until the production of illegal drugs is tackled.

And that makes for a bleak forecast for Afghanistan, as the US and its allies are seeking to apply the same basic policies that have been used to combat coca cultivation in Colombia to the poppy problem in Afghanistan. Indeed, the new ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, was previously the ambassador to Colombia.

Given the utter lack of success in controlling the cultivation of coca, let along the amount of cocaine produced in the Andes, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to control the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan. (On the topic of coca cultivation, there is an excellent column translated from El Tiempo over at Plan Colombia and Beyond that I had meant to note several days ago. While I am not sanguine about the policy recommendations it makes, the basic assessment of the problem is spot on).

Via the LAT: More than 35 feared dead in Kabul bus bombing

A bomb ripped through a police bus today in a crowded civilian area in the Afghan capital, killing more than 35 people and wounding at least 35 others, officials and witnesses said.

Fazel Rahim, from a nearby hospital, said 18 bodies lay in the hospital courtyard, while more than 35 people wounded were being treated inside.

According to the story the bus stop was one used by both police and civilians.

Via ABC News: Top Al Qaeda Leader Captured

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi is described as al Qaeda’s top operational planner in Afghanistan. He was also reportedly planning an assassination attempt on Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf.

[…]

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was captured by the CIA as he was attempting to travel back to his native country, Iraq. He was going to Iraq, officials say, to “manage” al Qaeda’s operations, including plots on Western interests outside of Iraq.

He was captured by the CIA in late 2024 and held at a secret CIA detention facility until this week, when he was transferred to Gitmo and Department of Defense custody.

Interesting.

I find the following characterization of Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman, by Power Line’s John Hinderaker to be interesting, to put it politely:

Kevin Tillman, an antiwar activist who has posted on far-left web sites, denounced the military for deceiving his family about the circumstances of his brother’s death

Clearly the reason to label Kevin as “an anitwar activist” is to try and discredit his claims as the rantings of some leftist loon who doesn’t like war anyway, and therefore who has an agenda beyond the issues of his brother’s death.

The part that Hinderaker leaves out is that Kevin, like Pat, quit a sports career (Kevin was in the minor leagues) to join the Army Rangers and that he was in the same convoy as Pat when he was killed.

As with much of what comes out of Powerline, the goal here seems to be to defend the administration (and attack Democrats for asking questions) more than it is to get to the facts of what happened.

The funny thing is that the stereotypical default position for conservatives is usually to pay high regard to the words of a soldier, especially a Ranger or the like. However, because so doing would lend credence to criticism of the administration, Hinderaker would prefer to simply dismiss Tillman as some anti-war kook (who writes on web sites, no less! ).

The story of Pat Tillman’s death via friendly fire in Afghanistan is a tragic one, to be sure. It is also shaping up to be yet another problem for the White House, as evidence is mounting that the administration was aware of the friendly fire facts well before they were released to the public. The problem is, of course, that Tillman’s story was being used for pro-war propaganda at the time. (For those unfamiliar with the story, Tillman was a pro football player for the Arizona Cardinals who eschewed his multi-million dollar salary to join the Army Rangers because he was moved to fight terrorism after the events of 9/11).

The initial suggestion that political considerations may have influenced the disclosure about Tillman emerged a few weeks back, and include the fact that soon after Tillman’s death, the White House was warned that Tillman was likely killed by friendly fire. A recounting of that issue can be found here.

The story of Tillman’s death, what he family found out and when and the general handling of his death has been starting to slowly boil slightly under the news radar for the last several weeks. What I know about it I have heard, primarily, from the ESPN Radio’s Dan Patrick Show, where it has been discussed several times in the last couple of weeks, including an interview with Tillman’s mother.

The Congress has been looking the affair and now ABC has the following “Breaking” headline:

ARMY RANGER TELLS CONGRESS HE WAS ORDERED TO CONCEAL INFORMATION FROM PAT TILLMAN’S FAMILY ABOUT THE SOLDIER’S DEATH

While the Army might conceal information from a family about the death of a soldier if there were national security issues involved, there is (to date) no evidence that that was the motivation. Rather it seems that the positive benefits of Tillman’s story to the military and the administration, and the commensurate embarrassment that the real story would entail, was the motivation for the lack of initial candor concerning his death.

Indeed, at his memorial service, Tillman was specifically hailed as a hero whose death came while he was protecting his fellow soldiers–a story that was not true.

If that is proven to be the case, jobs should be lost and serious apologies are owed.

Technorati Tags: Pat Tillman

Via ABC News: Pentagon to Extend Service for All Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Pentagon will extend the tours of duty for every active-duty soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As ABC News first reported Tuesday, this plan was in consideration, but will be announced today by the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Forget small extensions and trickles of National Guard troops. Under the plan, deployments for active-duty soldiers will be extended from the current 12 months to 15 months. This will apply to all active-duty soldiers, but not to the National Guard and Reserve.

And no kidding:

This plan will be unwelcome news to soldiers who have already had two and sometimes three deployments in Iraq, but officials say there is something of a silver lining: Under the plan, soldiers will be guaranteed at least 12 months at home between deployments.

This move underscores the strain currently being places on the armed services.

Via the BBC: Australia to double Afghan force

Australia plans to almost double its troop numbers in Afghanistan by next year amid warnings that the Taleban insurgency shows no sign of weakening.

Prime Minister John Howard said without an extra effort, the fight against the militants would not be won. He warned the country to prepare for casualties.

Six Canadian soldiers died at the weekend in the worst single incident for the Nato-led force since 2024.

Australia currently has some 550 soldiers in Afghanistan.

[…]

The total Australian deployment in Afghanistan will reach approximately 950 by mid-2007, and will peak at about 1,000 in the middle of 2024, according to Mr Howard.

The continued resurgence and resistance of the Taliban remains a rather under-covered story.

The BBC piece had this interesting map of the distribution of international forces in Afghanistan: