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<div dir="ltr"><big><big><big><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/24/the-new-surge-in-afghanistan-drug-production/"
target="_blank">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/24/the-new-surge-in-afghanistan-drug-production/</a></big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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</big></big></big><big><big><big><font
style="font-size: 16pt;" size="4"><big><big><big>Will
Any One Be Held Accountable?</big></big></big></font></big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
</big></big></big><big><big><big><font
style="font-size: 20pt;" size="5"><big><big><big><b>The
New Surge in Afghanistan: Drug Production</b></big></big></big></font></big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
by BRIAN CLOUGHLEY</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
Voutenay sur Cure, France.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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All news coming out of Afghanistan is depressing,
and it seems the country is collapsing more deeply
into chaos day by day. The new President, Ashraf
Ghani, is a good man with progressive ideas for his
people — but he’s taken over a country that has been
wrecked by over a decade of war and Olympic-style
corruption. One of the worst developments has been
the enormous surge in production of opium poppies
which, according to the UN and John Sopko, the US
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction, has hit "unprecedented" heights.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Mr Sopko, arguably the least popular person in
official Washington (and therefore, by definition of
that accolade, an honest man), told secretary of
state John Kerry and defense secretary Chuck Hagel
that "the recent record-high level of poppy
cultivation calls into question the long-term
effectiveness and sustainability of those prior
efforts [to control and reduce production]." But
the "prior efforts" by the US and other foreign
forces in Afghanistan have been so flawed as to be
absurd. If the catastrophe wasn’t so serious it
would be hilarious.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The State Department came back at Sopko saying
"Essentially, poppy cultivation has shifted from
areas where government presence is broadly supported
and security has improved, toward more remote and
isolated areas where governance is weak and security
is inadequate," which is misleading to the verge of
mendacity. Then the Defense Department went
further down the track of shameless blame-ducking by
declaring that "In our opinion, the failure to
reduce poppy cultivation and increase eradication is
due to the lack of Afghan government support for the
effort."</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Mr Sopko records that in 2001-2014 the US spent over
seven billion dollars on counter-narcotics programs
in a country that now produces 80 percent of the
world’s opium. During the thirteen years of frantic
money-chucking there were indeed various US efforts
to control drug production, and exactly seven years
ago I recounted how and why these exertions were
doomed to failure. Here is a shortened (not
"redacted") version of the piece with some
explanatory figures given in square brackets:</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
The Flat Drug World. October 13, 2007</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Ever heard of Mr Loren Stoddard? I’m tempted to
advise you to Stay That Way, but to give an
illustration of how absurd and disastrous are
Washington’s policies in Afghanistan it is of
interest to consider his performance. Bush of
Washington sets an example by being ignorant of many
things, and Stoddard of Kabul follows him by being
magnificently uninformed about Afghanistan.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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In spite of his lack of knowledge of the country
and its customs and culture Mr Stoddard has been
made Director of USAID’s Afghanistan program. Before
this he "helped Wal-Mart move into Central America"
when he was USAID Supremo in that unfortunate
region. So of course he is superbly qualified to
direct American aid projects in a country of which
he is profoundly ignorant. Stand by, Wal-Mart, for
a leg-up from your devoted admirer.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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With tongue firmly in cheek, David Rohde of the
New York Times reported that "On Wednesday [August
21, 2007], Mr. Stoddard and Rory Donohoe, the
director of the American development agency’s
Alternative Livelihoods program in southern
Afghanistan, attended the first ‘Helmand
Agricultural Festival.’ The $300,000
American-financed gathering in Lashkar Gah
[population 45,000] was an odd cross between a
Midwestern county fair and a Central Asian bazaar,
devised to show Afghans an alternative to [growing]
poppies."</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The head of the UN’s anti-drugs office, Mr
Antonio Maria Costa, said recently [May 31, 2007]
that "Helmand province is on the verge of becoming
the world’s biggest drug supplier, with the dubious
distinction of cultivating more drugs than entire
countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even
Colombia." But never fear, Mr Antonio Maria Costa
: the USAID Batman has arrived, cape flying, eyes
agleam, with Robin Donohoe in tow, to bring
Washington’s anti-poppy culture to the admiring
citizens of Lashkar Gah.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The fatuous duo of Stoddard and Donohoe "arrived
[and] walked through the festival surrounded by a
three-man British and Australian security team armed
with assault rifles. ‘Who won the cow? Who won the
cow?’ shouted Mr. Stoddard, 38, a burly former food
broker from Provo, Utah. ‘Was it a girl or a guy?’
After Afghans began dancing to traditional drum and
flute music, Mr. Donohoe, 29, from San Francisco,
briefly joined them." (Knowing a little bit about
the tribes in the region I can imagine their
reaction to that little bit of cross-cultural
activity.)</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The phrase "was it a girl or a guy" used by the
sophisticated Mr Stoddard is only one indication of
his profound ignorance of the country in which he
heads an agency responsible for billions of dollars
of US taxpayers’ money, of which he wasted 300,000
on a futile jamboree.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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If Mr Stoddard imagines for one second that
women in Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province (or
anywhere else in Afghanistan) can own cows, he is a
fool. If he thinks that a woman could enter a
raffle to win a cow ("a generator, cow and goat were
raffled off") he is demonstrating a staggering lack
of knowledge of regional custom for which he can be
offered only deep sympathy. There were no women at
Mr Stoddard’s absurd ‘Festival’. Women don’t go to
social gatherings in Afghanistan. Mr Stoddard
obviously doesn’t know that even the wife of the
President of Afghanistan, a medical doctor, does not
appear in public.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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And it isn’t just Mr Stoddard’s ignorance of
national customs that is so laughable. He "cited
American-financed agricultural fairs, the
introduction of high-paying legal crops and the
planned construction of a new industrial park and
airport as evidence that alternatives [to poppy
growing] were being created."</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The man is in cloud-cuckoo land. An industrial
park? — in a province where electricity is a
rarity and there is no commercial infrastructure of
any description? One could be forgiven for
imagining that Mr Stoddard might have been inhaling
products inducing a high credibility threshold.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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There are no "high-paying" legal crops in
Helmand province. Some nuts are exported to the
Gulf, but generally people grow enough plants
(wheat, barley, fruit, vegetables) for their own
sustenance and to sell a bit to their neighbors and
use most of their fields to grow poppy because the
warlords and the criminals (many of both being
government ministers) pay reasonably well.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Sure, some cash ends up in the hands of the evil
and disgusting Taliban religious fanatics who move
between Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing at whim
the while and blowing themselves up in murderous
futility; but drug money isn’t nearly the
insurrectionist problem the would-be mind-benders
would have us believe. The billions of dollars (not
just millions; we’re talking real money here) [2
billion dollars in 2012; 3 billion in 2013] created
from Afghanistan’s poppies go to thuggish Afghan
warlords and Afghan army generals; to many members
of President Karzai’s own government (some of whom
are thuggish warlords and generals) ; to Uzbek,
Pakistani, Iranian, Tajik, Turkmen and,
increasingly, Han Chinese middle-men in the west of
the PRC (big problem on the rise there for China);
to Pakistani tribals who have been smuggling drugs
since time was invented; to freelance ruffians of
all descriptions, and, above all and most
lucratively, to Western criminals who appear immune
to the efforts of US and British law-enforcement
agencies to put them behind bars.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Within Afghanistan the stink of drug corruption
is as obvious and calamitous as it is in London or
New York. But nobody is going to rock the sleaze
boat in Afghanistan.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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The anti-drug effort in Afghanistan is a farce.
There is talk at the moment [October 2007] of aerial
spraying to eradicate the crop in Spring next year.
Of course that would play right into the hands of
the insurgents who have already convinced much of
Afghanistan’s population that occupation by foreign
forces is simply a rerun of the years when troops of
the former Soviet Union went round blitzing
villages.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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If the nations with troops in Afghanistan are
serious about eradicating the drug trade they would
combine their best brains (which automatically
excludes Mr Stoddard) and produce a workable plan
(not a fatuous "seamless package" [the USAID phrase
of the time]) to wipe out poppy, jail the drug thugs
and introduce controlled compensation. Mind you,
it’s all very well to blame the Afghans for
producing poppies, opium and heroin. What they are
doing is meeting market demand. After all, there
would be no drug production in Afghanistan if there
wasn’t a welcoming market in the drug-loving
prosperous West. The drug world is very flat indeed.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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* * * </big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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That was the state of Afghan drug production in
2007. And as we hear in 2014 from the UN and the
admirable Mr Sopko it has since surged to staggering
proportions. But is anyone going to be held
accountable for the waste of 7.6 billion dollars of
US taxpayers’ money? Or — of much more importance —
for the lives of all the thousands of soldiers who
have died or been maimed for nothing in the horrible
useless Afghan War?</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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Don’t hold your breath on that one.</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
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</big></big></big><big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big><big><big><big>
Brian Cloughley lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France.</big></big></big><br>
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