Aerial eradication thwarted in Afghanistan

The US is backing off on its plan to force aerial eradication of poppy fields down the Afghani government's throat. With the illicit drug trade forming some 60% of Afghanistan's gross domestic product, it's clear why Karzai would want to tread lightly on the issue but what's striking to me is the way the $780 million US tax dollars was being allocated for the proposed counter-narcotics programs. $152 million had been earmarked for aerial eradication beginning this month.

And how much were they planning to spend to rebuild the economy with an alternate crops? $40 million. Oh and "in the meantime, the United States has given $500,000 for a one-time program to deliver wheat seeds and fertilizer to farmers in Nangarhar province, one of the major poppy-growing areas."

They don't say what they're going to do with the other 580+ million. My guess is that's all for military expenses. Further, "the administration will ask for up to $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan in a supplemental budget request in early February."

Thinking of the Senlis Council's press release, it seems to me there's a simpler solution. We should buy the crop, turn it into legal morphine and simply pay the farmers enough to grow legal crops to make it worth their while to give up poppies. It wouldn't take that much. The farmers are not the ones making the money on the drugs. They are by and large poor people who simply grow the crop that gives the best return. Individually they still barely make enough to survive.

As former U.N. advisor in Afghanistan Barnett R. Rubin tells the Pak Tribune, "opium prices that had plummeted because of the bumper poppy harvest last year quadrupled on the expectation that eradication would make for a smaller crop this year."

Because opium can be stored indefinitely and sold when the price is right, the traffickers "are big supporters of crop eradication right now," said Rubin, who argues that supporting other forms of rural development is a better investment.

"The net result of crop eradication will be a net transfer of income from opium growers to drug traffickers," he said.

We need look no further than the failed model in Colombia to see the truth in that. The US has poured millions of our tax dollars into coca eradication there and you all know what little effect that's had on the amount of cocaine on the streets of our cities.

Unfortunately, Bush doesn't get the lesson. The administration is currently reworking the proposal. They still want to go on with the eradication by hand. Don't ask what's that's going to cost.