20 February 2007
Chicken or Egg in Opium Wars?
In her OpEd article in the 20 February 2007 Wall Street Journal, Ms. Vanda Felbab-Brown restricts NATO to its military capacity, which would obviously be most effective in Afghanistan as a security force. However, NATO is a growing and changing organization that represents the common interests of the nations of North America and Europe. Their common interest here is to avoid falling into the trap laid by the Taliban that claims Afghan farmers have no viable alternative to growing opium. That trap works as long as NATO resists financing the recovery of Afghanistan’s rural economy and relies on the drug habit of American and European heroin and crack addicts to provide a livelihood to Afghan farmers.
If NATO’s role in counternarcotics is limited to fighting insurgents, the only beneficiary will be the Taliban, whose main competitors in opium trafficking are the warlords. The wealthy members of NATO must fund the rebirth of a vibrant Afghan agricultural sector.
Which came first—eradication or substitution? Poppy eradication prevents rural families from feeding themselves even as suppressing the Taliban deprives them of the only alternative to warlordism that seems ever to have worked. NATO may best achieve its goal of order and peace in Afghanistan by making it possible for the Taliban to manage the resurgence of legitimate agriculture in Afghanistan.
In her OpEd article in the 20 February 2007 Wall Street Journal, Ms. Vanda Felbab-Brown restricts NATO to its military capacity, which would obviously be most effective in Afghanistan as a security force. However, NATO is a growing and changing organization that represents the common interests of the nations of North America and Europe. Their common interest here is to avoid falling into the trap laid by the Taliban that claims Afghan farmers have no viable alternative to growing opium. That trap works as long as NATO resists financing the recovery of Afghanistan’s rural economy and relies on the drug habit of American and European heroin and crack addicts to provide a livelihood to Afghan farmers.
If NATO’s role in counternarcotics is limited to fighting insurgents, the only beneficiary will be the Taliban, whose main competitors in opium trafficking are the warlords. The wealthy members of NATO must fund the rebirth of a vibrant Afghan agricultural sector.
Which came first—eradication or substitution? Poppy eradication prevents rural families from feeding themselves even as suppressing the Taliban deprives them of the only alternative to warlordism that seems ever to have worked. NATO may best achieve its goal of order and peace in Afghanistan by making it possible for the Taliban to manage the resurgence of legitimate agriculture in Afghanistan.
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