Afghanistan Opium: Between a rock and a hard place

There is a new spate of attacks in Afghanistan as NATO forces prepare to take over most military duties from the U.S.-led coalition. These attacks -- including suicide attacks, a tactic once unknown in Afghanistan – range “from the murders of five medical workers in Badghis province in the north to bombings in the opium poppy region of Helmand in the south”, as Pamela Constable reports in the Washington Post:

“The reinvigorated Taliban militia, for its part, has vowed to wage a bloody spring and summer offensive against the Afghan state. But a variety of foreign analysts and military officials here offer a different explanation: a vast canvas of weakly governed and unprotected territory in which drug traffickers, feuding tribesmen and opportunistic criminals -- as well as Taliban gunmen on motorbikes and mysterious suicide bombers -- operate with increasing ease, despite the presence of tens of thousands of foreign troops in the country.”

“Over the next several months, more than 6,000 troops from Britain and other NATO countries are slated to take over security in the southern region, and analysts are predicting a bloody debut.”

Another byproduct of Afghanistan occupation is the country is again producing 90 percent of the world's opium, which of course ends up on the streets of the world as heroin. According to one U.S. report, the area devoted to poppy production has nearly tripled in the last two years. One can understand why—drugs are about the only saleable commodity that poor country has.

The irony of this situation though is that the western occupying forces have become the chief drug lords there, in a way. After all, what made it possible for the smaller drug lords to come to power was the overthrow of the Taliban. In order to originally overthrow the Taliban, the U.S. had to turn to those Afghan rebels the Taliban were fighting—this shady bunch of warlords and drug lords called the Northern Alliance, whom the Taliban had driven from power because they were so corrupt.

The Taliban, who practice a very fervent and severe form of Islam, at least had cracked down on the opium growing and drug dealing during their reign of fear. To overthrow the Taliban, the U.S. used this alliance of drug dealers and warlords, and now the U.S. and NATO forces are between a rock and a hard place: The U.S. can't let the Taliban regain control but to keep the Taliban under control, they have to allow the Afghan drug lords and warlords, who are now provincial governors and even cabinet officials, keep dealing drugs and all their related chicanery.