[Previous entry: "Gore Vidal Delivers State of the Union: "Let the Powers That Be Know There is Something Called We the People of the U.S. and all Sovereignty Rests in Us.""] [Next entry: "US Prods Lebanon Towards Civil War"]

02/01/2006:

"Blair's latest expedition is a Lawrence of Arabia fantasy"

...British and US policy towards Afghan opium after the 2001 invasion was totally cynical. As a covert reward to the warlords for supporting Karzai, the occupiers turned a blind eye to the 2002 replanting. Since the market for any unregulated global product tends to be near perfect, the prospect of rocketing profits brought an unprecedented acreage of Afghanistan into production. Twenty-eight of 32 provinces were instantly under cultivation. Refining factories were set up, keeping more profit in the country and creating jobs. Europe was soon swamped with cheap heroin. A Glasgow 11-year-old could buy it for £10 a packet. Afghanistan's economy is now wholly reliant on opium as a result of the west's ending of Taliban crop suppression and refusal to curb consumption. The policy was deliberate.

Britain is now pretending otherwise by sending the army to Helmand province, Afghanistan's poppy-growing area. Its Herculean objective is to stamp out both the opium trade and Taliban infiltration. According to the defence secretary, John Reid, the war on terror is "absolutely interlinked to countering narcotics". By eradicating poppies in Helmand, Britain hopes to drain the swamp on which terrorism floats.
guardian.co.uk