It seems to be an undisputed fact, that Afghanistan in 2007 no longer exports much raw opium at all.
"Good", you'll probably say. "That is because the Western troops now have chased the Taliban back into the mountains. The fight to bring democracy and Western culture to this backward country finally seems to show promising results."
Wait a minute. Don't draw your conclusions preliminarily.
Afghanistan doesn't export raw opium any longer, true. Yet, this year it harvests the highest amount of opium the world has ever seen... Additionally, the country is doing what our Western international aid efforts urge every developing country to do: Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations.
What Afghanistan does export now, is heroin. Yes, in the Afghanistan of today raw opium is processed to heroin. On a *massive* scale. More precisely: on an industrial scale, not just in some backyard kitchens. This 'achievement' alone accounts for 40% of all of Afghanistan's GDP -- as well as for the record 66% growth of the GDP in the six years of Western occupation...
Opium processing, outputting heroin requires lots of chemicals. Many millions of liters in fact. Chemicals that are no longer transported into the country by lorries. But by tankers. And then loaded to lorries for further transport to the heroin factories, which use the same roads as the NATO troops use. (You may also wonder which of the Big Ten Monopolies in the world-wide chemical industry is selling them these massive supplies....)
You now think "Maybe the troops are blind? Or too busy fighting the Taliban so they can not pay attention to this illegal industry?"
You're wrong again.
Go read this complete article in the Daily Mail. It was penned by Craig Murray, who used to be the Ambassador of the UK government to Usbekistan, and who is a man who surely had (and maybe still has) access to a lot of information sources that we Joe Does can't even dream of...
Syndicate Blogs
opium is "normal" for farmes in afghanistan
All the people outside of Afghanistan have to keep in mind that opium farming is normal to farmers in Afghanistan, just like corn or rice in other countries. It is an importan part of the daily/monthly incomes for John Ali Doe in Afghanistan. No Warlord is forcing them.
You can't burn down all the opium without giving the people an alternative in income. It's not only Warlords you have to fight, but to assure normal farmers to use other seeds (i.e. spicery), thats give them enough income to live from.
If the troops interfere with this "normal" daily business, then you made alot of farmers angry and you will see new Talibans and Anti-US forces popping out everywhere in Afghanistan.
a very interesting read,
a very interesting read, thank you. Though I try not to get upset about these things anymore. Turning into my parents, in that regard. When I was young(er), I used to be mad at them for not caring (as I saw it). Now, after having spend years of 'caring', I got tired of it, and annoyed because indeed - in some obscene way, the news always stays the same. It's one of the reasons I like the speeches by Eben Moglen (few here: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=moglen%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource_movies) so much. He's quite positive, putting the whole 'free software' movement into a larger perspective, and ending most of his speeches somewhat like this: "What's different from the fights about freedom before us is this: this time, we win".
Some good news
I had heard reports that the growing trade in Opium was what was funding the new Taleban. So at least its not doing that.
It does make sense, the people who would obviously oppose the Taleban were the drug lords.
But why Iraq is in even a bigger mess is partly because we didn't have any of our own warlords to "keep the peace" when Saddam was disposed.