Taliban's Thriving Drug Operation A Sign Of Worsening Problems In Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The Taliban have built a huge and profitable drug operation in Afghanistan while provincial governors look the other way, the latest grim sign of backsliding in a country the U.S. has spent six years and billions of dollars trying to salvage.

A report Friday on drugs _ it said Afghanistan now produces 93 percent of the world's opium poppy _ comes hand in hand with the resurgence of Taliban militants despite U.S. anti-insurgent efforts. Also on the rise: terrorist violence such as roadside bombs, suicide bombings, and attacks on police.

The problems have worsened rather than diminished under the watch of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and the relatively small number of American forces stationed in the nation while larger numbers are deployed to Iraq.

More than 6,500 people _ mostly insurgents _ died in violence in 2007, according to an Associated Press count of figures provided by local and international officials. It was the bloodiest year since the U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban in 2001.

Afghanistan risks becoming a failed state because of deteriorating international support and the growing insurgency, warned a recent independent study co-chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering.

Just this week, the top U.S. intelligence official told Congress that President Hamid Karzai's government controls only 30 percent of the country.

The resurgent Taliban control some 10 or 11 percent, while local tribes control the rest, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell said.

That's despite the $140 billion Congress has appropriated for Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 attacks that were the original reason given for U.S. involvement. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is still at large, thought to have fled through Afghanistan's tribal lands to a hideout across the Pakistan border. The U.S. money has gone for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs and veterans' health care.

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Afghanistan's Defense Ministry has rejected McConnell's discouraging assessment, insisting the government controls the vast majority of the country.

However, the State Department's account of the drug problem on Friday was in line with McConnell's view.

Afghan farmers grew more poppies for opium in 2007 than ever before, the report said, the second straight year of record production in the nation the United States invaded.

Afghanistan is by far the world's largest heroin producing and trafficking country.

The drug trade deters progress toward a stable, economically independent democracy, concluded the annual survey of global drug production and trafficking.

The report describes an Afghan twist on the old organized crime protection racket: Drug barons supply the Taliban with money and weapons, and the hardline militants protect the growing regions and help get the drugs to market.

The drug problem is worst in the parts of the country where the Taliban have made their strongest comeback since being chased into the mountains by U.S. forces. The drugs are grown with near impunity in the same stripe of rugged tribal land along the Pakistan border where the U.S.-backed Afghan president has almost no authority and where American and NATO troops are battling the Taliban in the fiercest sustained fighting the Cold War alliance has ever seen.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Friday the alliance is committed to Afghanistan "for the long haul."

"We are there to support President Karzai and the Afghan people," de Hoop Scheffer said during an Oval Office visit with President Bush. "But we're also there because we're fighting terrorism, and we cannot afford to lose. We will not lose. We are not losing; we are prevailing."

The United States, which has some 28,000 forces in the country _ both in the NATO-led mission and as part of a separate U.S.-led counterterrorism coalition _ is sending an additional 3,200 Marines in April. Most of them are expected to be stationed in Kandahar during their seven-month tour. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says NATO countries will have to come up with the troops to replace the Marines in the fall.

NATO claims that more than six years since the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan, the militant movement is being "contained," with some 70 percent of violence last year occurring in just 10 percent of the country.

All 26 NATO nations have troops in Afghanistan. They have expanded the force from 5,000 to 43,000 since 2003, but many allies _ including Germany, France, Spain, Turkey and Italy _ have refused to send significant numbers of combat troops to the violent southern part of the country.

That refusal has opened a rift with the United States, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Romania whose troops in the southern provinces have borne the brunt of Taliban violence over the past year. Canada has threatened to pull its 1,700 troops out of Kandahar next year unless allies provide 1,000 reinforcements.

Bush did not mention the strain Friday.

"The United States is committed to the NATO mission in Afghanistan," Bush said. "We're committed to a comprehensive strategy that helps folks in Afghanistan realize security, at the same time, economic prosperity and political progress."

A senior administration official said Friday that while there should be no expectation of a surge in NATO troops after Bush and other NATO leaders meet this spring, there are likely to be "announcements that will be helpful." The official spoke on condition of anonymity to more candidly describe White House thinking. There are increasing signs that France, under the new leadership of President Nicolas Sarkozy, is ready to answer the repeated calls from the U.S. and other allies to step up in Afghanistan.

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On the Net:

A congressional report on cost: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

Comments

[littleblackcat]

The fact that the Taliban is thriving is almost enough to make me laugh. This is supposed to be bushit's big success? Afghanistan is going back to its roots and the Taliban is THRIVING! Says a lot for the idiocy of geo. dumbass bushit, doesn't it. What a loser we have all stood by and allowed our newly elected Congress to declare off limits as far as being brought to account for. Sometimes I have no hope at all for this country. Any rich repus out there willing to relocate me and my family to a nation of my choosing? I can be ready to go in 21 days.

[littleblackcat]

The United States is going to pay dearly for its ongoing meddling in the affairs of the world at large. We do NOT have the right to tell anyone else how to do things. With the largest prison population in the world and growing, what do we think we're doing that is so special? Criminal behavior is going to escalate in the very near future due to the shrinkage of jobs, the refusal of the repuke party to fairly assess taxes on the richest who DO NOT invest their money and "create more jobs". The bastards move their money overseas, both in offshore bank accounts and factories that pay $2.00 a day to poor workers who think they are getting a good deal while the owners are banking millions on their effort. Education is slumping in this country because the haves and the have-mores know that an uneducated public can be controlled. We need to mind our own business, stay home and EDUCATE every person with the brains to learn. That would put paid to bushit, he no more holds a legitimate M.B.A. than one of my cats does. I know nothing about drugs, but I know damned well that U. s. is nothing to point to with pride any more and the sooner we learn to sweep in front of our own door before pointing to the dust on someone else's, the better.

[oxygen]

I really don't see a problem with them growing opium, the u.s. is the largest consumer of it in the world and it is a good and safe drug used wisely and all of our ancestors did so with it for thousands of years without strict and stupid drug policies and putting people in jail, to say this is bad is to piss on the graves of all our ancestors whop somehow despite this drugs allegeded evilness were able to use it wisely and sacrafiv=ce and work hard to get us all here, in addition low dose opiods are much safer on you liver and kidneys than tylenol or ibuprohen, only 1 out of every hundred people ever get adicted to the point where they are disfunctional... low dose opium ois a grat anti depressant, loweers high blood pressure naturally with no side effects and much more - wht about all the tobacco we export under the protection of corporations to columbia, and afghanistan which DOES cause not only addiction but cancer? why the double standard? these people adn most of us are not that stupid to believe this is realy bad - it is actually really good as the world needs to take natural pain killers - in new england and throught this country here in the u.s. growing opium is still legal - you just can't bite into the pods or extract the opium from them - howevre if you walk thru just about any old houses garden around new england you will find opium growing wild or as part of a pernnial garden BECAUSE people years ago couldsimply grow a good and effective pain killer that cost practically nothing and forthe most part was usd wisely if it wasn't we wouldn't be here and civilization would have collapsed if you want to listen to drug warrio scare tactics and propaganda that gain insult their own relatives - this is just another ploy to infest ourselves in a part of the world that wants us out and a way to feed into the already largest in the world prison population here in the u.s. mostly becasue of the stupid nad disrespectful to our ancestors heritage, all of you reading this have grqndparents and great grandparents who used this, cocaine, cannabis extracts and other now illegla drugs wisely and prudently - and that's a fact - ask anybody over 60 if they think "paragoric" is bad and they will tell you hell no and some still think you can just go and buy it at a pharamacy like you used to be able to - thisis all just fear mongering propaganda to prop up furhter large republican restrictions on the free market and individual liberties, it should be simply an element of supply and demand and maybe if they could sell the product on an open market in the u.s. it would put many a prison guard out ofa job as well as all the rest of the police statte apparatus allegedlydesigned to protect usfrom ourselves and the evil ways of our ancestors right? then also they would have prosperity in afghanistan and with properity comes openess in society and would eventually elleviatte the talibans waacky religious ideologies as science and the free market would over take the abuse of women there adn much more but I really think this is a way to keep them as a pseudo enemy the american public can be tricked into believeing these people are evil and need to be controlled mnad invaded for ulterior politcal agendas having nothing even to do with their country, it is to create a sphere of enfluence with people who used to be our friends and whoim we trained and armed to chase out those evil russians who had invaded thier country - now who is the real terrorists? same in palestine - BUT unfortunatley the fre market already sold TV's to the whole world and now the whole world is starting to twake up to this childish american philosphy that their ideologies should be forced on the rest of the world to make them pure and non opium using good humans, but smoke all our american cigarettes and booze! haha -remember republicans believe in small governemnt provided it is large enough to force everyone else to comply with their fredom restricting agendas consequently they need a very large police state apparatus muc h as easter n germany used to have and at current economic trends continue thatnks to the republicans we may have the same economiy of eastern germany.. the game is up republican fredom restricting ancestoral defecating on their own people's graves and putting down their own people as evil... not very respectful or wise and if their ancestors could speak from the grave I am sure they would aree with me, people used to be more open and liberal than theyare now thanks to the police state and prison complex bush and his pals have set up - but it's not a racist thing either it's just a fluke so many blacks are in prison... no w use the drug laws as a aform of apartheid and hope nobody smells a rat - so far they have been successful atthat so it makes one wodner about the whole political process here in the u.s. - it's not what we're told it is and the rest of the world already is aware of this for several decades now - remember you work the first few weeks in january for free every year so that your taxes can be taken and usd to keep people from doing such innocuos things assmoking cannabis instead of drinking alcohol - now that's a really good way to spend the people's taxes ins't it repubs? and the irony is that if you don't pay those txes to keep marijuan illegal you can end up in prison sitting next to and doing time with a marijuana seller or possesor!! now that makes alot of sense doesn't it