Afghan opium crop hits record high ahead of Western withdrawal - U.N.
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Afghan opium cultivation has hit a record high as international forces prepare to leave the country, the United Nations said on Wednesday, with concern that profits will go to warlords jockeying for power ahead of a presidential election next year.
The expansion of poppy to 209,000 hectares (516,000 acres), will embarrass Afghanistan's aid donors after more than 10 years of efforts to wean farmers off the crop, fight corruption and cut links between drugs and the Taliban insurgency.
"The short-term prognosis is not positive," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan.
"The illicit economy is establishing itself, and seems to be taking over in importance from the licit economy."
Afghanistan is the world's top cultivator of the poppy, from which opium and heroin are produced. Last year, it accounted for 75 percent of global supply and Lemahieu had previously said this year it might supply 90 percent.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/13/uk-afghanistan-opium-idUKBRE9AC06V20131113
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BBC says that a former Pakistani diplomat was told in July 2001 that a military operation to overthrow Taliban was being planned for mid-October, before the snow falls. (3)
The US began bombing on October 7. Kabul fell a month later, and the opium crop in 2002 was of normal levels. I don't know what all kind of industrial effort it takes to seed a country's opium crop, but I'm impressed that the stuff could be banned in 2001 and have a normal crop in 2002 (planting season is mid-October to mid-November (1)). This suggests to me that suppliers of seeds anticipated the change in the opium policy and were ready to distribute the seeds. By 2004, production was at an all-time high, with 140,000 hectares in cultivation. (2) Currently 209,000 hectares are in cultivation. (1)
Afghanistan has a million opium addicts. One of the reasons the Soviet invasion failed is because so many of their soldiers became addicts. The possibility that many of our troops there have nasty opium habits is something I've never seen discussed.
It's pretty hard to hide a field full of red poppies.
1.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=244926635
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_opium_poppy_cultivation_1994-2007b.PNG
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
"We" have soldiers risking their lives daily to protect the heroin dealers crops.
I believe that commercial poppy farming is illegal world-wide, even in Afghanistan.
How openly corrupt can "our" administration be?
Guard the oil and poppy fields. This is what our soldiers are told.
I was watching "Mobsters" on teevee yesterday. At the end of the show (based on actual events), they told what happened to each major mobster in the film.
Most died peacefully after Lucky Luciano took over and installed a board of directors instead of one capo. He modeled this after large corporations.
Mayer Lansky (they had many Jewish mobsters too) "died peacefully in his sleep, of old age, as one of the richest men in America."
Has wall st. taken over the mob or has the mob taken over wall st.?
In the end it is all the same. The thieves and murderers become very wealthy (and socially "rock stars"
while hard work and obeying the rules get you nowhere.
