Word: opiumeators
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...found with nine tons of opium and heroin in his basement. So what? Now there are hundreds of tons of heroin in basements across Helmand ... Drugs were three times less [under Akhunzada] than they are today. The province was in our hands. Schools were running, women's associations were running, clinics were running, hospitals were running, girls and boys were going to school. There was peace. We removed Akhunzada on the allegation of drug-running, and delivered the province to drug runners, the Taliban, to terrorists, to a threefold increase of drugs and poppy cultivation. To the closing of schools...
...more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan." As president, Obama has promised that he would redeploy two more US combat brigades to the Afghan theatre, ask NATO for more troops and fewer restrictions on those troops, accelerate the training of the national army and police, encourage alternative livelihood crops for opium farmers and help support the fledgling Afghan government. In recent weeks, his Republican opponent has joined the call for sending more troops to Afghanistan, and earlier this week Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that U.S. officials are looking for ways to send more forces to the country. Before he left...
...agencies, effectively closing the main access to the central regions of the country. In provinces close to Kabul, such as Wardak, Ghazni and Logar, which were easy to visit two years ago, foreigners are regularly attacked and girls' schools burned at will. Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium (used to make heroin) and 35% of its cannabis and has a flourishing trade in looted antiquities. In a vicious cycle, narcotics, corruption and the absence of law and order are rotting the heart of the government and crippling the economy. Despite massive Western investment, Afghanistan is close to being...
...health and education, but their contact with civil servants is minimal, and people remain very poor. In the south and the east, along the Pakistani border, the vacuum of government has become an opportunity for gangsters and the Taliban. These are the areas where almost all the world's opium is produced and where Western forces are fighting a costly counterinsurgency campaign...
...creative. This is not because these issues are unimportant; they are vital for Afghanistan's future. But only the Afghan government has the legitimacy, the knowledge and the power to build a nation. The West's supporting role is at best limited and uncertain. The recent elimination of the opium crop in Nangarhar, for instance, was driven by the will and charisma of a local governor and owed little to Western-funded "capacity-building" seminars. The greatest recent improvements in local government have come about through the replacement of local governors rather than through hundred-million-dollar training programs. Since...