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Author Topic: Afghan Govt shuns Senlis Council for backing legal opium production
Dana Larsen
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posted 17 October 2006 11:20 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6055934.stm

quote:
Drugs group in Afghan exit order

The Afghan government has ordered the closure of all offices of a group that wants to promote new ways of dealing with the global drugs problem.

The Interior Ministry said the Senlis Council, had been "confusing farmers" and had been a factor in the increase in poppy cultivation.

Senlis has suggested the legal use of Afghan opium for medical purposes.


quote:
Afghanistan is building a new counter-narcotics police force but reports say the force only has personnel in nine of 34 provinces.

Only six provinces are reported to be opium-free.



From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Noise
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posted 18 October 2006 12:02 PM      Profile for Noise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Dana, are you surprised by this at all? Remember who profits from opium production and who the current Afghan Gov't is made up of ^^
From: Protest is Patriotism | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 18 October 2006 07:35 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Surprised? No.

Disapppointed? Yes.

I am also sad to see that the Senlis Council proposal is not receiving more support in Canada.

The National Post and the G&M both have had articles supporting the idea of buying up the Afghan opium crop, and the Vanc Sun mentioned it in a column yesterday.

But considering the potential of the plan I'd like to see it get some political traction so Jack Layton can bring it up.


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Noise
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posted 19 October 2006 08:04 AM      Profile for Noise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I am also sad to see that the Senlis Council proposal is not receiving more support in Canada

The Conservatives... I'll give credit to Republicans along with any party supporting war as well... have really narrowed the outlook on the war to one of 2 major 'teams' on the war debate. We're either in their 100% sticking to the mission or we're 100% 'cut and run'. Supporting 3rd ideas, such as Senlis, ultimately is as useful as supporting Nader

What really disturbs me is how exceedingly uniformed most Canadians are regarding Afghanistan beyond some GI Joe fantasy of saving the poor lil afghans from the big bad guy or some mass occupation and suppression plan ^^ I guess when the only thing you care about is if what you are doing is right or wrong, whether or not it's the right way of going about it becomes second priority.


quote:
The National Post and the G&M both have had articles supporting the idea of buying up the Afghan opium crop, and the Vanc Sun mentioned it in a column yesterday.

I'm curious how the support was worded... Time to go article hunting I guess. The idea behind this doesn't seem bad at this point, but I get the feeling it's all pretty naive to the way Afghanistan really works.

[ 19 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]


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jeff house
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posted 19 October 2006 09:38 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It is too subtle for the US and Canadian administrations to be warring on drugs while buying up Afghanistan's opium crop.

It doesn't fit in with the slogan: "Just say NO to drugs".

We are prisoners of past propaganda campaigns.


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Dana Larsen
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posted 19 October 2006 09:54 AM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here's the Globe & Mail article:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1271/a08.html

Here's an archive of 46 media stories which mention the Senlis Council:
http://www.mapinc.org/people/senlis+council

Their proposal has been endorsed by the New York Times, by the European Parliament and the UK Tories, among others.

I thought the National Post had endorsed the idea in a column but I couldn't find any references to that.


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Webgear
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posted 19 October 2006 10:13 AM      Profile for Webgear     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was wondering if anyone is attending this event in Ottawa.

Senlis Council Debate on Afghanistan in Ottawa

I have been reading a lot of thier reports, they have a lot of great plans for Kandahar and southern Afghanistan.


From: Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 19 October 2006 11:31 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am stuck in Toronto, but note that John Polanyi is one of the panelists.

He is a fantastic speaker, and an extremely knowledgeable man.

Go if you can.


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Noise
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posted 19 October 2006 11:57 AM      Profile for Noise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for the links Dana

quote:
It is too subtle for the US and Canadian administrations to be warring on drugs while buying up Afghanistan's opium crop.

Heh, its an odd loop to look at if anything. A few highly valued western commods (in Afghanistan it's primarily opium and in Sudan it's oil) is providing the money for a good chunk of the fighting... Money gathered from the sale of these resources to the Western world are ultimately the ones being used to buy the weapons and support to fight back against the Western world. Is it possible to eliminate this root cause? I'd doubt it... We're as addicted to oil as we are the narcotics it would seem.

Though the more I read, the more I struggle to support this. As long as we here have the demand for underground substances, someone is going to provide. Licensing some growers will create a lil niche market for a few growers to participate in, but I can't see it halting or even slowing down the majority of the drug trade. More likely... I would think a few new fields will open up to provide for this newly created 'legal' market, while the mainstay continues on course. Yay, now we have a couple legal warlords ^^ Curious, does Senlis advocate paying money for opium sales... Or should we save the growers some time and just trade in ammunition and explosives directly?

Senlis looks like their trying to put a bandaid on a situation with this. The root cause behind the opium production in Afghanistan is ultimately our demand for it... Addressing our demand is the ultimate resolution. (just speculating not advocating) IF everything was legalized and people could grow their own, would we still be sending millions upon millions of dollars over to Afghanistan warlords? Same principle for oil as well... You can adress the production all you want but as long as our demand remains, people will be willing to cater to this demand (for the right price of course)

Mind you, in the absence of any plan trying to address the demand and prices created by the war on drugs... Senlis seems to be a decent alternative.


From: Protest is Patriotism | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged
siren
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posted 19 October 2006 01:16 PM      Profile for siren     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Noise, I think the difficulties "helping" Afghanistan are somewhat like the problems involved in global warming. That is there is no one solution that will solve our dependency on oil; ethanol but itself is not enough, neither is wind power. It will be a number of alternative technologies (including addressing demand) that will help alleviate global warming.

In a similar manner, I don't think Senlis is suggesting it has the answer to Afghanistan's suffering. Buying the opium crop(s), legalizing production for world medical markets, these are just a small part of addressing the overall issue.

But I agree, accommodation with drug lords will be the sticking point. Yet war and drug lords have been integrated into Afghanistan's "democracy" so the issue is semantic and superficial as well.


From: Of course we could have world peace! But where would be the profit in that? | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 19 October 2006 06:22 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Though the more I read, the more I struggle to support this. As long as we here have the demand for underground substances, someone is going to provide. Licensing some growers will create a lil niche market for a few growers to participate in, but I can't see it halting or even slowing down the majority of the drug trade. More likely... I would think a few new fields will open up to provide for this newly created 'legal' market, while the mainstay continues on course.

According the WHO and others, we have a current global shortage which would take 10,000 tons of opium production to meet the demand. Afghanistan currently produces around 6000 tons, which is the highest level it has been for decades, so they could still significantly increase supply just to meet the legal market.

Would other areas in the world begin producing opium poppies to meet the underground market? Probably. So this effort wouldn't solve all the world's problems, but it would help stabilize Afghanistan, which is where our troops are currently killing and dying.

A real long term solution would involve ending the global drug war and allowing legal access to regulated opiates to everyone. But that will be a long time coming and this would be a good first step.

quote:
Yay, now we have a couple legal warlords ^^
Curious, does Senlis advocate paying money for opium sales... Or should we save the growers some time and just trade in ammunition and explosives directly?

The opium poppy crop is not very valuable on the ground. The amount the farmers get paid doesn't go to buying weapons, it goes to buying food. The "warlords" and others profit from buying the poppies from farmers and then processing and reselling it at a much higher price. If we buy the crop from the farmer ourselves, then the farmer feeds his family, but the warlord doesn't profit from the opium sales.

quote:
Senlis looks like their trying to put a bandaid on a situation with this. The root cause behind the opium production in Afghanistan is ultimately our demand for it... Addressing our demand is the ultimate resolution. (just speculating not advocating) IF everything was legalized and people could grow their own, would we still be sending millions upon millions of dollars over to Afghanistan warlords?

This is not the solution to every problem in Afghanistan, but it seems like a better idea than hiring Afghan mercenaries to destroy Afghan farmers' livelihoods, and driving farmers into the hands of the warlords who profit from their crops.

The Senlis plan would help stabilize Afghanistan, provide their government with legitimate tax revenue, and help meet the world's growing demand for pain-relief medications. Would this plan make anything worse? I can't see how. But I can see how it would help make things better.

quote:
accommodation with drug lords will be the sticking point.

No accomodation is required with drug lords. We tell farmers that if they register with us then we'll guarantee to buy their entire crop at a competitive rate. We could offer 10% more than the warlords do and still get a bargain. I suspect the vast majority of opium farmers would be happy to sell their crop to the west if we gave them a good price.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
siren
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posted 19 October 2006 07:19 PM      Profile for siren     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dana Larsen:
No accomodation is required with drug lords. We tell farmers that if they register with us then we'll guarantee to buy their entire crop at a competitive rate. We could offer 10% more than the warlords do and still get a bargain. I suspect the vast majority of opium farmers would be happy to sell their crop to the west if we gave them a good price.

The war lords (what a term! how about "fuckin' war profiteers") are not going to stand idly by while others deal with Afghan farmers, bring in trucks with which to haul the product to market, etc. Some negotiation with fuckin' war profiteers will be necessary. In the short term they will demand a cut in the profit. And the CIA and ISI might as well.

The Canadian diplomat who was killed some time back now was, I believe, working on a similar plan to purchase opium. Not that his death should dissuade efforts.


From: Of course we could have world peace! But where would be the profit in that? | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Noise
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posted 20 October 2006 10:29 AM      Profile for Noise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
According the WHO and others, we have a current global shortage which would take 10,000 tons of opium production to meet the demand.

The Senlis plan seems to address this issue here as opposed to much benefit within Afghanistan... Any form of help to the Afghani people in this case kinda seems like a happy side effect of the plan

quote:
The opium poppy crop is not very valuable on the ground. The amount the farmers get paid doesn't go to buying weapons, it goes to buying food.

Ah, so straight from the farmers then? I can see security issues possibly coming up if 'warlords' don't like farmers selling direct, but beyond that it's much better from paying drug lords ^^. Curious though... From above, I'm pretty sure this won't reduce the number of illegal poppy operations and will start up it's own niche market. Would farmers currently growing foodstuffs be tempted to switch to poppy production instead? The farmers that would be targetted with this would be somewhat free within Afghanistan to grow what they want as is... Would this poppy licensing simply give legitimate farmers growing foodstuffs a more valuable cash crop to legally grow?


quote:
The Senlis plan would help stabilize Afghanistan, provide their government with legitimate tax revenue, and help meet the world's growing demand for pain-relief medications. Would this plan make anything worse? I can't see how.

Not sure if this would happen... But the make things worse can occour in 2 instances. First, the 'warlords' realize someones moving in on their business and take steps to 'persuade' farmers to their side... Which could deteriorate security even further in some regions (keeping in mind that several of these warlords are part of the fledgling Democracy within Afghanistan... I can't imagine farmers being happy when they're hiding from both other Warlords AND their own government that licenses them). And the second would be tempting legitimate farmers currently growning the foodstuffs that support the region to switch to this opiate cashcrop.

Would the benefits outweigh these 2 possible downturns? Of course, I'd need to find more info to answer that.

Thnx for this thread Dana... Most informative.

quote:
The war lords (what a term! how about "fuckin' war profiteers")

War profiteers isn't really a correct term. Afghanistan pre-invasion is very fuedal... People don't associate as Afghani people, they are more closely linked to a village (or series of villages) run by elders. A group of these elders band together under a single warlord. Our invasion (on the simplest terms possible) is over throwing these 'warlords' and their Fuedalism for a Democracy (er.. image of Democracy ^^). I don't think war profiteering is accurate here as if anything, the warlords are struggling to keep their power. A good number of them will view democracy as a tool for them and become 'elected' by their villagers. (of course, Democracy just doesn't work whn people vote based on what village they come from instead of on issues)

[ 20 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]


From: Protest is Patriotism | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 20 October 2006 02:57 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The Canadian diplomat who was killed some time back now was, I believe, working on a similar plan to purchase opium. Not that his death should dissuade efforts.

Do you have a source for that? I don't think Canada has been involved in any plans to purchase opium poppies.


quote:
Ah, so straight from the farmers then? I can see security issues possibly coming up if 'warlords' don't like farmers selling direct, but beyond that it's much better from paying drug lords

The big money is not in growing poppies, it is in refining that product into heroin and then smuggling it to other nations. The entire Afghan poppy crop is only worth about $500 million on the ground.

So what is the warlords who currently buy and profit from the poppy crop don't like the poppies going to legitimate medicines? We're at war with them already, and their access to the poppy crop is what is funding out enemies war effort.

If we put out a standing offer to all Afghan poppy farmers that we will buy any crop they bring us at 10% over the going rate, we will accomplish four things: 1) we will make a big step towards winning the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghanistan people. 2) we will remove a good portion of the financial base which funds the war effort of our enemies. 3) we will allow more legitimate jobs to be created in Afghanistan in the processing and refining of the poppy crop into legitimate pharmaceuticalized medicines. 4) we will bring desperately needed pain-relief medications to those who need them in other third world nations.

quote:
First, the 'warlords' realize someones moving in on their business and take steps to 'persuade' farmers to their side... Which could deteriorate security even further in some regions (keeping in mind that several of these warlords are part of the fledgling Democracy within Afghanistan...

Right now it is the warlords who protect the livelihood of Afghan poppy farmers, while it is the western military which backs efforts to destroy the Afghan farmers livelihood. It makes more sense to me that if we were buying the poppy crop instead of burning it, we'd have a much better chance to make friends with the Afghan people.


quote:
And the second would be tempting legitimate farmers currently growning the foodstuffs that support the region to switch to this opiate cashcrop.

How would this be bad? If Afghanis can make more money growing medicinal poppy then they should do so. Indeed, they are already doing so, with the size of the poppy crop being bigger this year than ever before. The world needs more opium medicines, and Afghanistan wants to grow opium poppies. We should let them do what they are good at.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
siren
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posted 20 October 2006 04:57 PM      Profile for siren     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dana Larsen:
Do you have a source for that? I don't think Canada has been involved in any plans to purchase opium poppies.

Actually, I don't. I clearly remember the TV news coverage speculating that the diplomat, Glyn Berry, was targeted for his involvement with the opium trade. Whether he was attempting to buy the crop, destroy it or, most likely, simply negotiating with village elders as part of his PRT role is not clear.

Here's a bit from the U of Toronto paper, about halfway down the page.

quote:
Canada's attack on Afghan smack

Early in the 11th century, the master Afghan doctor Avicenna, one of the fathers of modern medicine, praised opium as the most potent of all pain relievers. Yet, a thousand years later, the same drug, coupled with resurgent terrorism, has his homeland in agony.

Opium and insurgency both played a role in the suicide bombing of a Canadian patrol on the outskirts of Kandahar this week that left diplomat Glyn Berry dead and three soldiers travelling with him severely injured.

Mr. Berry was director of the Canadian reconstruction team operating in the region, and perfectly aware that Kandahar is a traditional opium hotbed as well as a former Taliban stronghold.

But he was determined that, as part of rebuilding the area, the team would undermine the drug traffickers as well as the insurgents, who are often believed to be one and the same.

In a telephone interview conducted not long before his death, he called Canadian soldiers “gate-openers” who “allow us to reach communities that haven't had any contact with the central government since the days of the Taliban.”

Opening the gate, he added, had shown him that, when it comes to opium, “the Afghan farmer isn't in it for profit — they're in it for survival. If you don't produce enough, you end up in debt to someone with less-than-noble objectives. Certainly, the farmers I've met have an acute unwillingness to be a part of the business.”

His hopes were especially high because of a “beautiful, defining moment” — the recent gathering of residents of the region, Afghan officials and Canadian military and diplomatic personnel for a shura, or traditional political council, to discuss reconstruction priorities.

“All these communities that hadn't participated politically,” he explained, “were suddenly involved and working together with us,” raising the possibility that the Canadian mission really could weaken farmers' willingness to toil for the drug lords.

Mr. Berry's killing, of course, puts this sense of unity in grave jeopardy and serves as a stark reminder of the forces that threaten the stability of the entire region...


BTW, from the bios on line, Mr. Berry was a fine man.


From: Of course we could have world peace! But where would be the profit in that? | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
sgm
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posted 02 November 2006 11:17 PM      Profile for sgm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Next year's opium crop is looking more or less like this year's:
quote:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan farmers now planting opium poppies will probably reap a harvest comparable to this year's record crop, in part because insurgents are preventing effective counter-narcotics work, officials said Thursday.

Planting is under way in southern regions responsible for the bulk of the estimated 6,100 tons of Afghan opium produced in the 2005-06 growing season. Anti-drug officials say that despite anti-cultivation campaigns, they foresee little improvement by harvest time next spring.

[snip]

Police and government officials are deeply implicated in the trade, which adds to the corruption and lawlessness threatening Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. Taliban militiamen had all but eradicated opium cultivation by 2000 but now profit from it, protecting poppy farmers.

[snip]

The U.S. official said if there is no reduction in the opium harvest this year, Afghanistan would come under strong U.S. pressure to start spraying poppy fields with herbicide, an idea that Afghans, including Mr. Karzai, deeply oppose because of fears the chemicals could harm people.


This final suggestion about spraying merits close attention.

The US has for years backed an aerial spraying programme in Colombia to eliminate illicit coca plants: the effects on poor farmers in the countryside have been disastrous, and 'Plan Colombia' itself, a multi-billion dollar, largely military effort to eliminate illegal coca crops has not achieved its aims:

quote:
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's US$4 billion (€3.2 billion) effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade.

In an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia.

Six years and more than US$4 billion (€3.2 billion) in American tax dollars after Plan Colombia was launched in Caqueta, Colombia's army is still fighting rebels here, and coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is still the region's No. 1 cash crop.

But the alternative development programs meant to provide farmers with a profitable alternative to growing coca are vanishing in the state — a symptom, critics say, of how Plan Colombia has failed to persuade enough coca growers to switch to legal crops even as coca production reaches volumes unseen in years.

[snip]

The drying up of development aid is in contrast with the tens of millions spent on aerial eradication efforts that have barely curtailed coca cultivation in the region.

Some 400 coca farmers gathered here recently for a coca-growers' congress. In sweltering heat, normally tight-lipped peasants railed for hours against the lack of government aid even as a U.S.-supplied crop duster dumped clouds of the herbicide glyphosate on nearby fields.

Since June, when the latest round of spraying began, six peasants in the area have been arrested for having coca on their land.

"All the government ever does is fumigate and fumigate — it's their own fault we grow coca because they never show their face to offer alternatives," said Juan Carlos Mazabel, one of the organizers.


The record of the US 'War on Drugs' does not bode well for Afghanistan.

From: I have welcomed the dawn from the fields of Saskatchewan | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 04 November 2006 12:19 AM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If they start spraying the Afghan Opium crop with Monsanto's Round-Up, like the US does in Colombia, then Canada will never get our troops home, and we will have truly unified the hopeless War on Drugs with the destructive War on Terror.

Both "wars" are creating the problems they claim to be solving.

Check this Washington Post article for a look at the problems caused by opium poppy prohibition in Afghanistan.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1249/a10.html

Excerpt:

quote:
Two weeks ago, the top U.N.  anti-drug official aroused new international alarm when he announced here that the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan had increased by 59 percent in the past year. 

It grew despite a slew of expensive, foreign-funded programs to eradicate poppy fields and motivate Afghan farmers to grow other crops.

Poppy farming, banned in 2000 by the Taliban administration that U.S.-led forces overthrew the following year, quickly revived after the establishment of a U.N.-backed government and has been spreading rapidly ever since.  It now accounts for more than half the country's gross national income and provides the raw material for about 75 percent of the world's heroin.

"It's become an industrial production," said Doris Buddenberg, director of the U.N.  Office on Drugs and Crime here, noting that Afghanistan's opium output this year was a staggering 6,700 tons.  Rural poverty, dashed hopes for economic recovery, Taliban blandishments and anti-government sentiment "all added up to more families deciding to grow poppy," she said.

But anti-drug officials and experts here say the expansion of drug smuggling and refining is a far more pernicious problem than poppy farming and could easily turn Afghanistan into another Colombia.

"Our main problem is these former commanders and warlords who are still in power.  Now they are district chiefs and local police," said Maj.  Gen.  Sayed Kamal Sadaat, head of the anti-narcotics police force.  "The drug mafia is getting more powerful day by day, and the only support we have is from the international community.  The senior authorities not only do not cooperate, they get in our way."


More and more the Senlis Council proposal to license and legitimize the Afghan opium crop seems the right way to go. Otherwise we will be at war there forever, and making things worse, not better.

Of course, for Halliburton, Dyncorp, Boeing, and the many others who benefit enormously from prolonged and perpetual warfare, the self-perpetuating combination of drug war and terror war is a perfect combination.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 04 November 2006 12:51 AM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Afghanistan is now getting advice on their drug war from Colombian narcotics police.

http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBMUHVMTRE.html

Excerpts:

quote:
Overwhelmed by a flourishing opium trade, Afghanistan's government is getting help from a country that knows about narcotics operations.

A team of Colombian narcotics police, which spent two weeks in Afghanistan, has come up with a series of recommendations, including better evidence-gathering, airport surveillance, training and organization.

U.S. State Department and congressional sources said this week they support Colombia's suggestions and would push for implementation.


quote:
Atehortua and Maj. Raul Fernando Lopez said Kabul's international airport was a sieve through which heroin was smuggled with impunity, because the Afghans lacked the resources to stop it.

The Colombians have offered to train Afghan agents in methods of detecting "mules," or people carrying drugs surreptitiously. It's an offer the U.S. government is likely to underwrite.

The Colombians also suggested that the Afghans could do a better job of catching "high-value targets" by taking evidence at a bust scene rather than just destroying opium labs. They offered to train the Afghans in evidence-gathering methods.


This following comment I found odd:

quote:
They recommended against aerial spraying of opium crops, the main eradication method in Colombia. With up to 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy dependent on opium, spraying would be too much of a financial shock, they said.

So they are saying that their ultimate goal of eradicating the opium crop would actually be a bad thing, as it would destroy the Afghan economy? That seems inconsistent with their stated goal of opium eradication.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
jester
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posted 04 November 2006 10:04 AM      Profile for jester        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
President Karzai has given up attempting to rid the country of corruption because his efforts have been frustrated by American interference.

The Americans support warlords and other criminals in the Afghan government in exchange for their support in the "War on Terror" without any concern for Afghanistan's people or economy.

They use aid as a carrot to tempt Afghans into informing on their relatives.

Unless the international community can wrest defaco control of the Afghan intervention,not merely fronting American objectives,no progress will be made assisting Afghans.

The American presence is the problem,not part of the solution.

My solution is for NATO to renounce all US warfighting efforts and focus their efforts on force protection and reconstruction.If Canada and Britain refuse offensive action,the Americans are left alone.

Capacity building does no good when the benefits of capacity building flow directly to the corrupt officials in government.


From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged

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