Britain and US split over defeating Afghan opium trade

[cal04]

Attempts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crop have abjectly failed and British soldiers who take part in such operations may face legal action, an international think-tank has said. Britain is sending a task force of almost 6,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight the resurgent al-Qa'ida and Taliban and also take part in tackling the country's poppy crops. These supply 90 per cent of heroin to this country and the UK is planning to spend £20m a year on eradication.

But at the eve of the London Conference on Afghanistan co-hosted by Tony Blair, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President differences are emerging between Britain and the US. American officials are pressing for aerial crop-spraying. But aid agencies and human rights groups point out that poppy fields are often adjacent to ones growing vegetables and wheat. British officials are against spraying. But a report by the Senlis Council, the think-tank, showed yesterday that the US administration was advertising for aerial spraying jobs in Afghanistan.

Recent job postings by the US Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs include the position of "Aviation Eradication Ops and Safety Officer" and an "Aviation Maintenance Adviser" for operations in Afghanistan. According to the report, a US government document says "the end game of the CN aviation programme is the curtailment of the supply ... through aerial and airmobile eradication of drug crops".

The Senlis Council is setting up a fund, and commissioning lawyers to act for farmers whose poppy fields are
destroyed. The British force being sent to Afghanistan will come under a Nato mandate which stipulates that troops deployed should concentrate on peacekeeping and training the Afghan police and army. Nato officials said that does not include opium eradication. The UN has also warned about the dangers of foreign intervention. Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said the military "should not be involved in eradication. This should be run by the national authority" because crops destroyed could be "replanted in weeks".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article342138.ece

[merwin]

1. Simple solution. Burn the crops.

[Amonester]

3. With (illegal) NAPALM.

:sarcasm: :grr:

[spindrifter]

2. Colombia, anyone?

Who's brainless idea is this? What are they going to do to provide economic support to countless Afghani tribesmen who rely on poppy cultivation for their entire income? I certainly do not favor opium production, but I look at S. American coca growers for an example of how the eradication effort is not so simple as just dumping a bunch of chemicals or setting a lot of fires. The ecology of Afghanistan is fragile, and many of its people truly live a marginal existence.

[rooboy]

6. If you stopped the opium growth in Afghanistan...

you would remove 90% of the heroin from Europe's streets. And there is a suspected heroin addiction rate in Iran amongst adult males of 20%.

Afghanistan isn't Colombia - these crops aren't growing in jungles, and they're not a traditional method of feeding villagers. Take half the money spent fighting drugs in the west and BUY the crops off the villagers.

[Solon]

4. OK, who wants to bet that the biggest customer of this cash crop...

is the White House?

[EC]

5. Why the hell do we keep butting in on a countries trade? ,,,n/t

[merwin]

7. We were the ones that helped them be able to grow all those drugs.

The one thing the Taliban was good at was keeping the drug crops down (or so I hear... I'm not much of an expert on Afghanistan)

[InkAddict]

8. Ok, I'm bad - I thought the header said something about them

being undecided about how to split the profits of the crop!

[1932]

9. Follow the money. Which companies make the spray? To whom do they give $?