Demonstrating the kind of bizarre foresight for which it is famous, the Bush administration is pursuing a poppy-eradication program in Afghanistan that could undermine the Karzai government, already on shaky ground, and give the Taliban a boost.
[A]mong European diplomats here, a far greater concern than any environmental or health dangers of chemical eradication is the potential for political fallout that could lead to more violence and instability.
Those diplomats worry particularly that aerial spraying would kill food crops that some farmers plant with their poppies. European officials add that any form of spraying could be cast by the Taliban as American chemical warfare against the Afghan peasantry.
The British have been so concerned that on the eve of Mr. Karzai’s trip to Camp David in August, Prime Minister Gordon Brown called President Bush and asked him not to pressure the Afghan premier to use herbicides, according to several diplomats here.
Who opposes Bush’s policy? Let’s see, there’s Karzai, all of our European allies, Bush’s Defense Department, and Bush’s CIA, all of which believe that the White House’s approach to destroying Afghanistan’s poppy crop will bolster the Taliban, which, the president’s claims to the contrary, is amassing more power in Afghanistan all the time.
It’s the intersection of Bush’s war on drugs and Bush’s war on terror, and the White House seems to be prioritizing the former over the latter. The consequences may be severe.
Mark Kleiman, an expert on drug policy, has a great post on the subject, explaining, “We can’t solve our heroin problem, or Europe’s, by fighting the poppy crop in Afghanistan. And nothing that happens there will make our heroin problem, or Europe’s, noticeably worse.”
The Bush Administration’s utter lack of seriousness about its proclaimed GWOT could have no better symbol than its lunatic insistence on continuing a futile anti-drug policy in Afghanistan.
Probably the right thing for Karzai to do, in terms of his government’s chances against the Taliban, would be to legalize, or at least tolerate, poppy-growing and heroin refining in the areas of Afghanistan it controls, with the goal of enriching its allies and farmers in loyal areas and undercutting the market for opium from Taliban-controlled areas and thus the Taliban’s capacity to benefit its subjects and derive revenue from “taxing” the illicit trade. If that’s right, the U.S. should get out of the way.
Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, isn’t hopeless: yet.
Scott Lemieux added:
[B]oth undercutting the Karzai government in Afghanistan and denying it the ability to obtain revenue from poppy-growing while effectively ensuring that said revenues will instead go to the Taliban is utterly insane. It would be insane even if there was any reason to believe that it would reduce American heroin use, which of course it won’t. To prioritize failed anti-drug war policies over protecting American security is beyond indefensible.
If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen that phrase associated with Bush administration policy….