U.S. Struggles To Curb Afghanistan's Opium Industry
KABUL, Afghanistan — For years, American officials have struggled to curb Afghanistan’s opium industry, rewriting strategy every few seasons and p...
KABUL, Afghanistan — For years, American officials have struggled to curb Afghanistan’s opium industry, rewriting strategy every few seasons and p...
Posted 01.02.2012
By Mong Palatino, The Diplomat Opium cultivation is on the increase in the Palaung communities in the northern Shan State of Burma. This fact...
The New York Times | JACK HEALY | Posted 12.11.2011
Despite increased efforts to destroy fields of opium poppies and wean Afghan farmers off the country’s biggest cash crop, poppy cultivation in Afgha...
Jan McGirk | Posted 11.29.2011
Equal parts lit crit, biography, linguistic anthropology and social history, Rimbaud in Java: The Lost Voyage examines the remaining mysteries about Arthur Rimbaud as a fugitive from justice.
Mark Kalch | Posted 05.25.2011
Soon the plateau began to change. No longer rolling hills and rocky terrain, I now walked towards daunting peaks. I had begun to enter the Zagros Mountains.
Posted 05.25.2011
The February issue of National Geographic takes an in-depth look at Afghanistan's opium wars. As writer Robert Draper discovers, a key step to securin...
LA Times | Laura King, Los Angeles Times | Posted 05.25.2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday denounced a large-scale drug raid in which U.S. forces and Russian drug agents took part, calling it a viola...
Posted 05.25.2011
President Hamid Karzai may have slammed recent drug raids conducted by U.S. and Russian agents in Afghanistan as "a violation of sovereignty," yet tha...
Huffington Post | Alden Wicker | Posted 05.25.2011
In their brief but expensive life, flower arrangements are often seen as impractical and even a waste of money. But flowers have a long and rich histo...
Josh Mull | Posted 05.25.2011
There is definitely a huge drug problem in Afghanistan, and our strategy seems to be the cause of it. Our allies that we desperately rely on are all high on drugs, selling drugs, or both. And not only are we paying for it, people are dying because of it.
Sam Sedaei | Posted 05.25.2011
A small group of Pentagon and USAID officials and American geologists may have found the biggest single solution to permanently transforming Afghanistan's economy and winning the struggle against Taliban.
David Reidy | Posted 05.25.2011
Afghan government must protect farmers from Taliban violence, stop participating in the drug trade, and encourage the growth of a diversity of legal crops.
David Reidy | Posted 05.25.2011
I find it infuriating when a discussion of strategy in Afghanistan is hijacked by the fallacy that it is an inherently ungovernable zone.
Aaron Glantz | Posted 05.25.2011
Malalai Joya has been called "Afghanistan's bravest woman." But that doesn't mean she supports President Obama's decision to double the number of American troops in her country.
Sam Sedaei | Posted 05.25.2011
As President Obama is getting ready to live up to his promise, renew American efforts in Afghanistan and make a number of critical decisions regarding an increase of troops, an ever-growing chorus of liberals is pressuring him to abandon Afghanistan and withdraw without any regards to what will happen next.
Richard Allen Smith | Posted 05.25.2011
We are partnering with a symbol of government corruption, which undermines any trust we might receive from the population. We are funding the insurgency we are attempting to counter.
The Denver Post | Bruce Finley | Posted 05.25.2011
FORT COLLINS -- If the United States really wants to stabilize Afghanistan, say six Afghans visiting Colorado farms, then it should focus more on buil...
Todd Zuniga | Posted 05.25.2011
The thrill of following our app's rise (and eventual slide -- after day four we slipped from the top 100) gave me the chance to seriously eyeball the Books section and really look at what was in there.
Jamal Dajani | Posted 05.25.2011
Why isn't Mr. Karzai being held responsible for this blatant act of election fraud? And who can guarantee that a repeat of the fraud won't happen? Or that all hell won't break loose during the run-off?
Jamal Dajani | Posted 05.25.2011
Afghanistan is not Iraq. Unlike the Sunni Awakening, when Iraqi tribe members took up arms against al-Qaeda and foreign insurgents, the Taliban are an integral part of Afghanistan, not foreign fighters.
Reese Schonfeld | Posted 05.25.2011
I would like to propose that we consider another strategy -- strategic bombing. Take poppy fields, for example ... For once, we could be using our billion dollar bombers on billion dollar targets.
Washington Post | Craig Whitlock | Posted 05.25.2011
KABUL -- The Taliban-led insurgency has built a fundraising juggernaut that generates cash from such an array of criminal rackets, donations, taxes, s...
Yahoo! News | VIVIENNE WALT | Posted 05.25.2011
Could Afghanistan's opium boom be over? Perhaps. According to the latest report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, opium cultivation has...
AP | Posted 05.25.2011
A drug-sniffing dog named Rambo has uncovered more than 10 pounds of opium-saturated wood chips and leaves in a package at Chicago's O'Hare Internatio...
The Washington Post | Pamela Constable | Posted 05.25.2011
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan -- The economic fortunes of Badakhshan province, a remote and wildly beautiful corner of far northeastern Afghanistan, have rise...
The New York Times | Posted 05.27.2012