Is Afghanistan the Drug’istan for Nato?

Afghanistan's yearly opium output accounts for more than 90 per cent of the global supply. Photo Courtesy: Express Tribune

Published at Express Tribune Blog

The heavy cultivation of opium in Afghanistan is known to all of us. The pertinent question then is: why has Nato been unable to control this opium cultivation in the nine years of its occupation?

According to a recent article on TIME titled “Is NATO to Blame for Russia’s Afghan Heroin Problem?” Russia has lambasted the US and NATO for not doing more to stop little baggies of heroin from getting into the hands of Russia’s youth.

Russia further alleged that “NATO has fueled drug production by refusing to destroy Afghan poppy fields, which it stopped doing last year in the hope of winning the support of opium farmers.”

“In its way, Russia is making an important point. Between 2005 and 2009, Afghanistan’s yearly opium output jumped from 4,000 to 7,000 tons, and it now accounts for more than 90% of global supply, according to the United Nations. Russian state statistics say that opiates such as heroin and morphine kill around 30,000 Russians every year, three times more than the total number of Soviets killed during their 10-year war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.”

But the question stays the same: who will control this illicit drug cultivation and its trafficking and how will it be coped? Will the US led Nato forces and CIA will slash down the opium cultivation? Seriously?

Hordes of news reports regarding the Afghan opium cultivation have been highlighted on the media lately. Nearly all of them blame US led Nato for not doing enough to undermine the opium cultivation. Of late, a report in the New York Times surfaced. It said:

“Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Ahmed Karzai, however, denied this news, saying that “he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the CIA.”

Simultaneously, American officials also acknowledge that the relationship between Mr Karzai and the CIA is wide ranging.

Whatever the case maybe, one’s doubt on the role of Nato in dealing the opium cultivation is valid.

Nato believes that the March offensive in Marjah redoubled the crackdown on drug traffickers with the aim of cutting the Taliban off from their main source of funding. Meanwhile, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): “a mystery disease infecting opium poppies in Afghanistan could cut this year’s illicit crop in some areas by up to 70 percent. The disease has led authorities to expect a ‘significant’ reduction in opium production this year.”

UNODC further said that the output of opium could fall by up to 25 percent.

According to the above explanations, the Marjah operation as well as the disease infecting opium poppies, the natural inducement, must bring a significant reduction in opium cultivation this year. Stats on it will be cleared up in the near future.

The solution to reduce the illegal opium cultivation is quite simple in my view. The impoverished people of Afghanistan cultivate opium not because they enjoy doing it or they consider it some sort of a redemptive act. They cultivate it to get money to buy food to feed their families. Opium is cheaper than the food many Afghan families consume. According to a blog at New York Times: “The poverty in the region (Badakhshan) is so consuming that parents blow opium smoke into their children’s noses to soothe the pangs of hunger.” The solution to end all of this is to overhaul the country’s infrastructure. Instead of spending billions of dollars on the war in Afghanistan, the United States must spend richly on humanitarian work. Humanitarian work, it seems, has nowadays become a sole job of NGO’s and private humanitarian organizations rather than the respective governments.

In Pakistan, a horde of people die each year due to the drug abuse. During the time of former President Musharraf regime, the then Health Minister stated that Afghanistan’s opium trade is sabotaging the efforts of Pakistan in controlling the spread of HIV in the country, particularly amongst the injection drug users. To be sure, drug trafficking and drug abuse directly affects

Pakistan’s internal security as well as its social stability. It ought to be dealt with iron hands.

Being a Pakistani, I’d also like to ask the government of Pakistan as to what role it is playing to limit the Afghan drug cultivation and its trafficking? According to some analysts, around a quarter of Afghanistan’s opium production is shipped through Pakistan from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan region. Pakistan government has all the right to question the ability and legitimacy of Nato in regards to the Afghan opium cultivation and trafficking.

Despite the fact that the government of Pakistan has taken some measures to cope with the drug trafficking issue, the trafficking is still prospering in Pakistan and feeding problems of drug addiction and the prevalence of HIV.

Does this not substantiate the fact that the government should do “a lot more” and not just “more” in this regards?

$1 Trillion Worth Mineral Deposits In Afghanistan

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. According to senior American officialdom, the mineral deposits are enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.

An internal Pentagon memo states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”

In the words of one of my American friend after she read this news:

Why they (American officialdom) even bother telling this to us is a mystery. It’s not like they need our approval anymore. They’ve made that abundantly clear.

From the same purview, it could be a justification for us, American, to stay there in Afghanistan, forever to “protect” these resources.

It seems that United States will hardly be leaving Afghanistan now, not until the time deposits are completely dug and transported — maybe partially — out of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the news is perhaps not so shocking. According to Huffington Post:

Just visit the public web site of the U.S. Geological Survey and read the press release “Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources in Afghanistan Released: 11/13/2007 10:00:00 AM” and you will find the following: “Afghanistan has significant amounts of undiscovered non-fuel mineral resources according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s 2007 assessment . . . Estimates for copper and iron ore resources were found to have the most potential for extraction in Afghanistan. Scientists also found indications of abundant deposits of colored stones and gemstones, including emerald, ruby, sapphire, garnet, lapis, kunzite, spinel, tourmaline and peridot. Other examples of mineral resources available for extraction in Afghanistan include gold, mercury, sulfur, chromite, talc-magnesite, potash, graphite and sand and gravel.”

To be sure, Afghan Talibans will take a keen interest after the final revelation of these massive deposits. This remains unclear what will come next. Maybe the Afghan Talibans will show more resistance than ever before, and maybe they’ll tilt towards some sort of peace deal. The latter one seems highly unlikely to transpire. In any case, the deposits solely belong to the people of Afghanistan. It’s the prerogative of people of Afghanistan to benefit from the $1 trillion worth mineral deposits. It sure will help to overhaul the war-torn country’s infrastructure. US has no right to “steal” the mineral deposits. If anything, “steal” is a better word in the case of United States of America.

My personal message to POTUS Mr. Obama is:

Please spend a little more time in nipping off the poppy etc. drug crops in Afghanistan, and a little less time looking for minerals. Thank you.

Action & Consequences

Something out-of-the-way. Few days back when NATO announced a major offensive in the southern Afghanistan in an area call Marja, there was a donnybrook mobilizing everywhere regarding the civilian casualties. American officialdoms said the civilian casualties in this major offensive is inevitable. And see, this is what happened: an errant American rocket strike on Sunday, 14th Feb 2010, hit a compound crowded with Afghan civilians, killing at least 12 people, including 5 children.

On Monday, 15th Feb 2010, NATO officials said an airstrike, unrelated to the Marja operation, killed five civilians and wounded two others. They were mistakenly believed to be planting roadside bombs in Kandahar province.

But somehow at this point in time US has taken the notice of civilian casualties and in order to avert the civilian casualties, today U.S. curtailed the use of airstrikes in assault on Marja.

Since this is something I again term as out-of-the-way, I thought I must share it. Simultaneously I just don’t think that in war the action should ever be divorced from the consequences. This is a war — a useless too — and civilian casualties are inevitable in the light of the situation. May the self proclaimed Godfather of Democracy and Justice realize it sooner than later.

The Godfather Of Democracy & Justice

Detainee Abuse

In any country, the lion’s share of independency is always withheld by the respective government even though the country is said to be a modern democratic country. When we witness such an unjust specially on the name of ‘greatest national interest’, it means we’re deprived of our rights. This time it’s not directly the Pakistan or Pakistanis deprived of their rights. On this opportunity related to the Justice Department of US, the de facto greatest national interest is about the detainee abuse that the photos of detainee abuse wouldn’t be released in as much as, and as said by President Barack Obama, it could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger US troops abroad, mostly in Afghanistan and Iraq. It should be noted that absolute majority of the detainees are foreigners and not the US citizens.

In a wake of organized demands by American Civil Liberties Union from the US Justice Department, the Federal Law has recently been modified in the mid of November 2009 on the name of greatest national interest. The new Federal Law, as stated by the High Court of US, says that the detainee abuse pictures would be withheld by the US Government.

The country that is said to have been a high-mettled supporter of democracy and justice and thus preaching the rest of the world to promote democracy and justice has itself been convoluted in the breaching of its own set of rules and collection of laws. This is what we call an apex hypocrisy that is blotted out on the name of de facto greatest national interest.

As the President Barack Obama said that the pictures of detainee abuse would give a rise to anti-American sentiment overseas, I ask: even withholding the pics, does the government of US could help itself subduing the voice of all those who raise their voice against the atrocities of US for a de jure reason? From another point of view, a host of Pakistanis — supporter of enlightened modernization — presume that having anti-American views makes one a Jamat-e-Islami activist, a fundamentalist or an extremist. But the Ghairat Brigade of Pakistan, sometimes or rather often snub the fact that 52% of Americans, contemporarily, want all their troops back home — the troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Ghairat Brigade of Pakistan wouldn’t call American Civil Liberties Union as extremist, fundamentalist or Jamat-e-Islami propagandist. But endorsing the cause of American Civil Liberties Union i.e. raising voice against the atrocities of American Government would make a Pakistani one of these three: Jamat-e-Islami activist, a fundamentalist or an extremist. This is how we’re — the Illah MashaAllah Ghairat Brigade of Pakistan.

So far, the American Civil Liberties Union has said that it’ll continue fighting for the photos’ release. I’m supporting the cause of ACLU and raising the voice against the heinous crimes the Government of America commits. You may call me a Jamat-e-Islami propagandist, a fundamentalist or an extremist. I really don’t care.

An Internationally Unpopular War

Sometimes surprises aren’t really surprises as they’re always expected in some way, but are delivered a bit late. Obama is going to reveal his new Afghanistan strategy on coming Tuesday during speech to the cadets at West Point. The top Democrats of U.S. including the Vice President Joe Biden has made it absolutely clear to Obama that he shouldn’t expect a friendly reception if he’s going to announce in favor of the troops surge strategy regarding Afghanistan. Ergo, Obama is under bare poles. As yet, Obama hasn’t informed members of his war council about the decision he’s going to make.

Senator Russell Feingold — another top Democrat — has coneyed his extensive reservations on the direction of president’s strategy. Senator Russel Feingold said: Devoting billions more dollars and tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan is not likely to significantly improve conditions in that country, and it will not help — and could even hurt — our efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda’s global network with safe havens in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and elsewhere.

Another interesting thing to note is that the most hawkish Democrats like Senator Carl M. Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee — and and Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee — have also expressed their reservations on troops-surge strategy.

In fact Senator Kerry has raised his voice to follow the strategy of Kennedy — that instead of increasing the number of troops, it’d be better if more be done to train the Afghan Army and police and to teach them the counterinsurgency tactics and outfit them with advanced equipments.

The Republicans have endorsed every war-funding bill and strategy sine 9/11, but this time many Republicans also seem to averse the troops surge plus extra war-fundings strategy, while they raise the issue that U.S. — their own homeland — is having monetary trouble — the problematic economic crunch.

Just few days back I read a report on the number of American people opposing the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. As per the poll result — published in Washington Post some days back — 52% of Americans want their troops back home as they find the 8 years results of war futile.

Just today, the German army’s chief of staff has resigned over an air strike in northern Afghanistan in September in which civilians were believed to have been killed. If anything, two Nato countries including Canada and Holland are retreating their troops from Afghanistan soon after Obama is going to announce new war strategy on coming Tuesday. This has caused a bit panic in the Nato countries like Germany and Itlay, and the common perception is that other Nato countries are planning to decrease their number of troops or might retreat all of them. Germany and Italy are silent; simultaneously their silence speaks volume that fighting and elongating the war in Afghanistan is really not practical. Britain is playing an arch-role in swaying the Nato countries.

On the other hand, Pakistan is all wishing that U.S-led Nato forces shouldn’t vacate Afghanistan since it’ll make Pakistan surrounded by it’s arch-foe India from both sides. Indian army is said to have been located in Southern part of Afghanistan, and strategically position of Pakistan is weak, it’d be weak even then.

Some of the officialdom from U.S. say that U.S. is also having secret talks with Afghani Talibans for peace process and for that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are acting as an interlocutors. The recent visit of CIA’s chief to Pakistan and meeting with ISI’s chief, COAS and other Pakistani officialdom does substantiate the fact of U.S’s interest to handle this war in an another way. Afghani Talibans have recently put a condition that to want peace in Afghanistan U.S- led Nato forces should vacate Afghanistan; it’ll become all peaceful and Afghani Talibans would take care of their country in a well way.

As yet, the House of Representatives is echoing with anti-troops surge strategy. The war is becoming unpopular everywhere in the world while in 8 years it has served a literal no good purpose and now the war is about to get enter into its 9th year.

Obama has recently pledged that he’ll put this war to an end by the time he’ll leave the office as he said he’ll not render the Afghanistan war issue to his successor, instead he’d like his successor to deal with other core issues like economy. How could we believe on Obama’s promise now when we’ve just witnessed Obama breaching his own promise of late — when he said that Gitmo can’t be closed down by Jan 2010. Ostensibly, it was Obama’s promise to close down Gitmo and such places while he was on the road to become president — during the election campaigning — the hot campaigning debates and everything connected to it. But conspiciously, he has failed to fill the bill.

In any case, Obama should unite the people of U.S, and the rest of the world badly affected by the bloody war, while making any decision.