Pubdate: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 Source: Rutland Herald (VT) Copyright: 2006 Rutland Herald Contact: http://www.rutlandherald.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/892 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) TERROR'S PUSHERS The Bush administration should be glad the American public's attention is fixed on Iraq. No, really. While the news out of Iraq is trending from bad to worse, it's still better than the news from Afghanistan. After leading a coalition that successfully ran the Taliban out of power in 2001, the administration turned its attention to what President Bush called the "axis of evil," namely Iraq, Iran and North Korea. But we seem to have turned away from Afghanistan a bit too soon. First off, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose somewhere along the mountainous border with Pakistan. Second, the Taliban was run out of power but not out of existence, and it's now making a comeback. The administration does not have to distort the truth to connect these people with 9/11, and yet they are once again a growing force in Afghanistan. The lifeblood of the resurgent Taliban and its allies in the southern of the country is opium. Far and away the world's largest supplier of opium poppies for heroin production, the country is experiencing a bumper crop of the beautiful but deadly flowers. According to a U.N. report from Saturday, opium cultivation in Afghanistan rose a "staggering" 59 percent this year, largely concentrated in the south. The crop is estimated at 6,100 metric tons, far more than enough to supply the entire world's demand for heroin. According the U.N., in Helmand province, cultivation rose 162 percent, accounting for 42 percent of the Afghan crop. That province is also the chief staging ground for the ongoing Taliban military operations. The Bush administration has declared cutting off radical Islam from its sources of income as a major, worldwide goal, but profits from the opium crop are large enough to supply an army of terrorists around the globe. An ABC news estimate puts it at $2.7 billion. Of that, an estimated $460 million goes to the poppy farmers; the rest is believed to finance "drug lords, warlords, and the growing Taliban insurgency." Unlike Iraq, where the administration's haste to war chased off many potential allies, the world has committed troops, money and development aid to Afghanistan. Now, with the Islamic insurgents renewing their military operations, those allies are starting to ask whether they are going to be stuck there indefinitely. Given that the reconstruction in Afghanistan is lagging, many people there are turning to opium growing to feed their families. The drug trade accounts for a third or more of the national economy and is far more profitable than most other options. It's a situation similar to Colombia. There, despite the Reagan-era "war on drugs," the cocaine lords have been fought only to a standoff; they control large parts of the country and traffic in drugs almost at will. They simply have too much money, power and influence to be eliminated completely. Given the nature of Afghanistan's drug lords, we cannot afford the same outcome there. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek