Word: evens
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...syndicates and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Also, many of the Afghan warlords whom the U.S. relied on to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda were involved in the drug trade. Now, officials say, the Obama Administration is taking a tough approach to drugs in Afghanistan, sparing no one, not even friends and associates of President Hamid Karzai. "Everyone's fair game," says a Western counternarcotics official in Kabul. "If someone comes within reach of our investigation, nothing is going to stop us from making a case." (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan...
...elsewhere, the Taliban protected the drug syndicates for a price, reaping millions of dollars from the opium bounty. But ordinary residents benefited from the drug trade too; it provided a lucrative crop for 70,000 farmers and their families, work for laborers and a source of graft for officials. Even the tribal council played a role in the trade, adjudicating disputes between drug lords...
...getting the farmers to eventually grow other crops instead. The last time officials in Kabul tried to get Marjah farmers to switch to wheat cultivation was in 2008, when opium was selling at $75 a kg, a long way down from the peak of $250 a kilo in 2003. Even so, the farmers turned down subsidized wheat seed and fertilizer, believing opium would be more profitable. They were wrong. When the next crop was harvested, says Rory Donohoe, a USAID official in Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital, "some wheat farmers made more than poppy farmers." That's because opium...
...semblance of normality has returned to Marjah under the watchful presence of 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces. Even President Karzai, who seldom leaves his Kabul palace for fear of assassination, was emboldened to pay a flying visit to a local mosque on March 7. He listened while local elders scolded him over his choices of corrupt officials posted to Marjah and the civilian casualties caused by the NATO assault. They also demanded that he build schools and hospitals and provide jobs. "They had some very legitimate complaints - very, very legitimate," Karzai said soberly as he left the mosque. "They...
...threaten to behead people if they work with the government. The insurgents need the farmers to stick with the poppy. According to U.N. experts, last year the Taliban reaped nearly $300 million from the drug trade; Afghan officials put the figure far lower, from $80 million to $100 million. Even at the low estimate, says a Western counternarcotics agent, "that's still enough to fuel the insurgency for a year." Nearly all of the Taliban's drug profits came from Helmand province, and a big chunk came from Marjah...