Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

April 7, 2008

Destroy Afghanistan’s Poppy Fields Now

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, an essential ingredient of heroin. The vast majority of Afghan/Pakistan-refined heroin is sold in Western Europe and Great Britain to feed their growing number of heroin addicts. Only between 5 percent and 15 percent reaches the U.S. The production is so immense that it has even affected Afghan food supplies. According to the International Monetary Fund, opium production is worth $1 billion to Afghan farmers. A whopping 12 percent of the Afghan population is involved in opium production.

Opium continues to be the major source of funding for militants in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorist network in particular. This symbiotic relationship is especially true since other sources of funding through fraudulent charity front organizations and wealthy Saudi benefactors have been dismantled and scrutinized through President Bush’s Executive Order 13224 and the passage of the Patriot Act. So why not directly attack this source of drug proceeds that finances terrorist training and events the same way?

When I spoke at the Department of Defense National Security Studies Program last year, I learned from several general officer attendees that they didn’t view drug enforcement as a military mission, and said that many of the opium farmers were valuable sources of information for them in capturing and killing terrorist leadership. Others expressed concern about the economic well being of Afghanistan. But at what price, I asked?

If bombing aircraft factories in Germany during World War II to halt aerial bombing raids on London made sense then, why not destroy poppy fields that fill terrorist coffers today? In two words: Political correctness.

It isn’t PC to deprive a poor, hard working, uneducated dirt farmer the ability to feed his family. That would be true if we weren’t talking about poppy. Crop substitution programs have failed miserably in Afghanistan. Why? Because there is much more money to be made from growing poppy than rice or wheat, despite claims that drug lords force them to grow the illicit crop. It’s as simple as that.

Afghan farmers don’t consider what they are doing as immoral or harmful to their economy because they don’t have Western morals or any sense of geopolitical consequences of their acts. In fact, virtually all the Afghan farmers are sympathetic to Al Qaeda, hate the West in general and hate the U.S. in particular.

But they readily accept aid from the State Department and the UN in the form of new roads, wells for irrigation and equipment for substitute crop production. As a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration on assignment in the mid-1990s to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, I saw the problem firsthand and the enormity of the situation. Every time the State Department financed the drilling of a new well or the construction of a new road, poppy production increased and farmers had an easier way to bring their deadly opium to market.

NATO forces in Afghanistan need to eradicate the farmers and heroin laboratories in addition to the poppy. They need to poison the wells and tear up the roads that have increased production. NATO nations have the most to gain by eliminating or at least reducing opium production, but they lack the political will. If the tables were reversed, poppy farmers wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to us. I wouldn’t believe a word these people tell me about the whereabouts of terrorist leaders, as they will say whatever they think you want to hear in order to survive. They view inaction by U.S. and NATO forces as utter weakness and ineptness, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill all the foreign soldiers on Afghan soil if given the opportunity.

The only thing these farmers understand is substantial, unrelenting blunt force that will subside only when they decide to go along with the program: Grow something other than poppy and accept the rule of the central government in Kabul. Unless affirmative action is taken, heroin production and the financing of terrorism will go unabated.

This may sound harsh to some, but nothing else tried has worked. A radically different course of action must take place if we ever expect to halt this major form of terrorist financing.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist who is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent and has written extensively on the nexus between drugs and terrorism. He can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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