Afghanistan: Rebuilding through Opium

[RTFirefly]

Washington Post story.

Check the graphic about halfway down that compares Afghan opium cultivation in 2001 and in 2002. Boy, the opium crop made major headway last year, and the article says they’re expecting a bumper crop in 2003!

The elder of Boymalasi village – a doctor – last year criticized the spread of poppy fields throughout the Argo district of Badakhshan. This year he’s growing poppy.

“I feel 100 percent terrible about it,” said Hasamudin, 44, looking down at his feet. "There is no rule in Afghanistan. If there was rule, the people could not do this. They would have to obey the orders of the government. There is no government in Afghanistan, just the name of government.

The increase of poppy fields and drug labs has driven the price of a day’s labor from about $3 to $10 – beyond the reach of farmers tending low-priced legal crops, but affordable for poppy growers.

The rising labor costs have also stalled road and bridge projects and other reconstruction efforts that are desperately needed in the province, which is poor even by Afghan standards, said Mohammad Hakim, 30, political officer for the Badakhshan office of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.

“Almost all the U.N. projects have stopped because there is no labor,” he said. “People are working with the poppy. Roof construction, school projects – all stopped. Everybody is affected.”

So our reconstruction of Afghanistan is grinding to a halt because we aren’t willing to pay laborers $10 a day?

Hey, when we rebuild a country, we just knock ourselves out.

[Dissonance]

Hardly surprising, unfortunately. If there was one thing that the Taliban did well, it was cutting back on opium production in Afghanistan. Nothing like public executions to make folks think twice about growing poppies. I almost lost it when Bush & Co. started blaming the Taliban for spreading drugs in our streets.

[RTFirefly]

Here’s what the article says about that:

In 1999, Afghanistan produced its largest opium crop to date: 5,060 tons, from about 224,000 acres of land, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The following year, the Taliban, the radical Islamic movement that ruled most of the country, banned cultivation of the opium poppy, but not its trade. As a result, the price of opium soared and the Taliban reportedly profited hugely from selling stockpiles of the narcotic.

“Reportedly” leaves a lot of room, of course.

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

Hash, dudes. Whatever happened to Afghan hash? Now that the country is supposedly secured, we ought to be getting some of that soon.

[minty_green]

Ah yes, Afghan hash. Back when I was in Amseterdam ca. 1990, it was the most expensive stuff on the menu at the coffee shop. Sadly, those were the days when I barely had 25 guilders to rub together.