The best heroin our taxes can buy
25 06 2008J, over at the Armchair Generalist, has a post about a Philadelphia Inquirer story (geez, this better be good, I’m blogging about a blog about a news article…talk about an echo chamber) that described how a marine unit (an element of the 24th MEU) has set up shop in a poppy growing region and allowed local farmers to continue harvesting their crop. I can only assume the marines will allow the harvest to begin that long, winding journey to the streets of Europe, Asia and the U.S.
J is a big proponent of eradication efforts to destroy the poppy harvest in Afghanistan but I remain skeptical. Quite frankly, I don’t think there’s any realistic way to destroy the whole (or even a significant amount) of the crop and our puny efforts to do so will only result in the following outcomes:
- Hostility among the local population towards the U.S./coalition
- Increased prices (and profits) for the Taliban/drug runners due to reductions in supply (perceived or real)
- Increased poverty among Afghan farmers
I would argue (and have) that the solution is for the West to buy the poppy crops and destroy them after purchase. In this way you could deprive insurgents/drug traffickers of both a major source of income and supply of their product and prevent the further impoverishment of Afghan farmers. While this wouldn’t be a good long term solution, it would go a long way in taking the initiative away from the insurgents and force them to either find alternate sources of revenue or fight to hold poppy producing territory. This would also contribute to winning that ‘hearts and minds’ campaign we keep hearing about among the local population.
Once you’ve got the poppy farmers on the payroll, the goal then should be to build the infrastructure up as quickly as possible so those farmers can transition to legitimate crops which can be sold on the open market. One of the problems facing farmers is that crops which could be profitable can’t get to market now without significant spoilage because of the lousy transportation system. Poppies stand up pretty well to the hardships of long transportation routes.
So the marines protecting the farmers and their opium crop may be denying the Taliban some revenue in their work but that’s not clear at all. The Taliban may just demand their cut from somewhere higher in the distribution chain. EIther way, it doesn’t deprive narcotics processors or traffickers from their revenue (and may even benefit them now that their fields are secured free of charge courtesy of the U.S. government) which means they will be staying in business.
So how well would the Taliban function with $100 million less in revenue every year? I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags : Afghanistan, Military, National Security
Categories : Uncategorized








