Today I rode in a black hawk helicopter over the poppy fields in southern Afghanistan with Brigadier General John Nicholson, Secretary Robert Gates and a few other folks.
I thought of that famous poem from World War I, John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields." It's one of my mom's favorites.
"In Flanders fields the poppies grow/Between the crosses, row on row," he writes.
I expected the poppies to be bright red flowers like the artificial ones people wear as a remembrance on Memorial Day, but there weren't any like that.
On the flight I was wearing a headset, so I could hear the Brigadier General briefing Sec. Gates on the opium situation.
The poppy crop is being harvested right now and made into opium which will later be refined into heroin. In fact, two thirds of the world's heroin supply comes from southern Afghanistan. Opium production accounts for 60 percent of this country's economy and it fuels the engine for the insurgency, with the Taliban making $70 to $100 million dollars a year.
So, how do you cut off this powerful source of drugs and money?
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has said destroying the poppy fields would only strengthen the Taliban. As Sec. Gates told me today, you have to find a crop to replace the poppies or every farmer becomes a Taliban recruit.
The U.S. military is bullish about helping with an agricultural transformation....encouraging farmers to plant pomegranates or vineyards, arranging microfinance and giving economic incentives. Officials say Afghanistan is an agrarian culture, relying on farming for centuries and NOT poppies. Agricultural teams will be coming from the states to offer advice and water experts may help direct farmers about what can thrive in this often drought stricken land.
Whether they will be inspired to start anew is up for grabs, but there is little doubt that the Taliban in their role of narcotics traffickers will fight ferociously to keep the drugs and money flowing.
Something called "the killing season" begins after the poppy crop is harvested and some farmers pick up their guns and become fighters again. As the U.S. pursues a more aggressive strategy towards the opium drug trade and dispatches soldiers to the fields of southern Afghanistan, it may be a very bloody summer.
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This post originally appeared at CBSNews.com.
Eliminate that funding structure and we should find it significantly easier to do whatever it is we're trying to do.
Doesn't anyone in the US government have any qualms about bringing in a bunch of Drug Warrior hacks and folding their tried and true recipe for institutional failure into the war in Afghanistan?
There's really no question - if the US makes Afghanistan a part of the Drug War, then the US is going to lose.
Putting aside the fact that pomegranates and grapes take years to bear fruit, and also the fact that people will naturally plant what brings them the most money the fastest, it's still unexplained why poppies/heroin must be fought as if they are as evil as the intentions of the Taliban.
The following Times Op-Ed column asks, "why not bolster the country's stability and end both the pain and the trafficking problems by licensing Afghanistan with the International Narcotics Control Board to sell its opium legally? "
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13szalavitz.html
"Because farmers aren't the ones who make the big bucks in the illegal drug trade, purchasing their poppies at competitive rates should be possible. But even if we paid exactly what the drug lords do, the entire crop would cost only about $600 million
...countries like India are licensed by the International Narcotics Control Board to grow opium because modern medicine cannot find anything better than opioids to relieve pain."
"A village-based economic solution to Afghanistan’s poppy crisis is available, which links Afghanistan’s two most valuable resources - poppy cultivation and strong local village control systems – through the controlled cultivation of poppy for the village-based production of morphine. Based on extensive on-the-ground research, ICOS has developed a Poppy for Medicine project model for Afghanistan as a means of bringing illegal poppy cultivation under control in an immediate yet sustainable manner. The key feature of the model is that village-cultivated poppy would be transformed into morphine tablets in the Afghan villages. The entire production process, from seed to medicine tablet, can thus be controlled by the village in collaboration with government and international actors, and all economic profits from medicine sales will remain in the village, allowing for economic diversification. As internationally tradable commodities, village-made medicines would also benefit the Afghan government. Pilot projects are needed to enhance the controllability and economic effectiveness of this counter-narcotics initiative. "
http://www.poppyformedicine.net/
Katie you served Palin her face on plate... I wonder if she'll ever do a interview with you again?
And what's with all the pictures of yourself, Katie? Isn't your story supposed to be about poppies?
Being in Afghanistan makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE for America. We should all be protesting this Corporatist money-making scheme at the top of our lungs.
move to CBS. This not so stealth infomercial for KATIE now serves no useful purpose other than to
show the futility of our life sacrificing presence in AFGHANISTAN.
Trying to manage the poppy crop is about as useless as using food (and starving millions) to produce ethanol.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The Russian live next door to Afghanistan and could not conquer it. Why do we think we posssibly have a chance there by throwing a few thousand troops in. This is madness. Bring our troops home now. Somone earlier suggested taht a clandestine war against the Taliban is what we need. They are dead right. Fight fire with fire. You cannot fight a conventional war against a belief - you will lose every time.