November 28, 2014--Best of Behind: The Poppies of Tora Bora

First posted on November 30, 2006, this sadly is still timely. There have been reports that the opium poppy crop in Afghanistan last growing season was at record levels and recently Barack Obama revealed that he is ordering more troops to that godforsaken place and that, in spite of promises, they will be allowed to engage again in direct combat. What's old is new again--

Literally buried in the very lowest left-hand corner of page A14 in yesterday's New York Times was a four-inch-long column titled, "Opium Crop on Rise in Afghan Province."

It summarizes a UN-World Bank report that concludes that not only will it "take a generation to render Afghanistan opium free," but also notes that opium cultivation rose by 59 percent this past year. Yes, by 59 percent! 6,100 tons of poppies were produced which yielded 610 tons of heroin. This constituted fully 90 percent of the world's heroin supply.

So here's my question--What the hell is going on over there?

Along with a legitimate coalition of NATO allies and others (unlike the phony Coalition of the Willing in Iraq), the U.S. has been a major presence in Afghanistan for about five years. We defeated the Taliban, destroyed the al Qaeda sites which in fact were used to train the 9/11 terrorists, and helped set up what appears to be a version of a stable, reasonably democratic government.

True, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden are still above ground, in a manner of speaking, and there is concern about a Taliban resurgence. But I ask again in regard to the poppy situation--What the hell is going on over there?

Aren't we also waging a War On Drugs? If so, it seems made in heaven that almost all of the opium is produced in the very same place where we have tens of thousands of troops on site and where we presumably control the situation in the air and on the ground.

So how about hiring Halliburton to get rid of the poppies? I know this in and of itself would bankrupt the poor farmers who depend on poppies for their livelihoods, but maybe in addition to plowing the poppy crop under we could subsidize the former poppy farmers the way we subsidize corn and wheat growers right here in America. I'm making an issue of this, even though I would vote in a second to decriminalize drugs including heroin, because it is such a good bad-example of our inability to get anything accomplished even when we have declared it a national priority.

We can’t rebuild New Orleans; we can’t teach our kids math; and now we can’t get rid of the poppies.