Before international terrorism, the most potent menace to humanity was illegal narcotics. As now against terror, the Americans also led in the campaign against drugs. The US Drug Enforcement Agency is without doubt the best-funded and most sophisticated organization devoted to the destruction of the world’s drugs barons and their evil trade. Unlike the war against terrorists who hide in their lairs until they are ready to strike again, the battle against narcotics ought always to be biased in favor of the attacker. Narcotic cultivation is hard to hide.
Yet the military triumph of the US and its foreign and local allies in Afghanistan has not led to a further clampdown on the cultivation of the opium poppy. Far from it. New figures suggest that the crop this year has increased by no less than 40 percent and most significantly the opium poppy is now being grown in entirely new areas. Under Taleban rule, narcotics cultivation fell, in part because the country’s new rulers disrupted the dominance of tribal leaders opposed to them who were also responsible for considerable quantities of poppy production.
The resurgence of opium output since the Taleban’s ouster is all the more disturbing because in the last ten years there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Afghan addicts. At a time when this unfortunate country should be rebuilding itself, it has problems enough without having to cope with the challenge of opium addicts. Yet tribal leaders believe that they must struggle for power and influence in the new political order and the revenues from drugs represent to them too great a temptation to pass up.
This situation was envisaged even before the Taleban were driven from power. There were warnings as Afghan opposition forces gathered in Bonn to plan the new Afghanistan. Much relied on the flow of promised foreign aid to allow the country to undertake its radical transformation toward a modern economy. Many warned that these promises had to be kept. They have not been. As a result, the opportunities offered by the Loya Jirga gathering of all the country’s community leaders have been largely lost. Just as seriously, the position of President Hamid Karzai has been made even more difficult. Afghans expected billions of dollars to fund change. They have received a relative pittance. In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the country’s traditional leaders have fallen back on their old ways.
The Americans are placing considerable hope in next month’s election but will this really constitute a successful step for stability? Because so many countries have reneged on their promises of aid, because elements of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda have survived in the remote mountainous areas bordering Pakistan and because Karzai’s administration has not had the resources to demonstrate the opportunities of real change, Afghans may see little point in abandoning their past. Poverty is the best fertilizer for growing narcotics.
Thus once again Washington has won a battle but is once again losing a war — this time against drugs.
