War On Taliban Shifts To Drug Lords

[Shek]

Hate to suggest this as I know a free market thinker like you would not like this, but has the US (or the Afghan government) thought about setting up collective/ cooperative farms where the government invests money to set up such farms and employs afghan farmers into the collective (that sounds so BORG)? The government can withdraw its investments once the farms start making money.

This will do away with the hurdle of sitting tight for 5 years till some money comes in. I doubt if any private player would be interested since apart from the five year waiting period they would have security nightmares to deal with

This thread has some info on what USAID has been doing in the area: http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/war...ry-2009-a.html

[antimony]

This thread has some info on what USAID has been doing in the area: http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/war...ry-2009-a.html

Thanks Major,

We definitely need more projects like Kandahar Orchards. One thing that I do not understand (and the USAID site is not clear on this) is how the projects are being implemented - by farmers individually or by some kind of cooperative.

The cooperative model has worked well in India, especially in cases of marginal farmers.

I think most farmers (non warlord types) in A-stan will not be able to crank out the investment required for an efficient pomegranate orchard

[Merlin]

"Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said early evidence indicated the new strategy was working."

US military increases attacks on Afghan drugs

2 days ago [AP] KABUL — U.S. Marines and Afghan forces have found and destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium and heroin in southern Afghanistan this month in raids that a top American official said show the new U.S. counter narcotics strategy in Afghanistan is working.

U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country's booming opium poppy and heroin trade. NATO defense ministers approved the targeted drug raids late last year, saying the link between Taliban insurgents and drug barons was clear.

U.N. officials say Taliban fighters reap hundreds of millions of dollars from the drug trade each year, profits used to fund the insurgency.

The U.S. announced last month it would no longer support the destruction of individual farmers' poppy plants, and instead would increase attacks on drug warehouses controlled by powerful drug lords — a wholesale change in strategy.

U.S. Marines, British troops and Afghan forces supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have increasingly targeted drug warehouses in Helmand and Kandahar provinces — the largest opium poppy growing region in the world.

Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said early evidence indicated the new strategy was working. ....

[Merlin]

On the other hand, a Senate Committee reported that the Talibans do not need much drug money, only $70 million, and the al Qaeda needs even less. This suggests they have other avenue of funding ...

Taliban drug proceeds lower than thought, U.S. report says

11 Aug [LATimes] A Senate committee report says U.S. spy agencies believe that about $70 million flows to the Taliban annually from drugs -- enough to finance the militants' relatively low-cost insurgency.

Reporting from Washington -- The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have concluded that the amount of drug money flowing to the Taliban in Afghanistan is far lower than widely estimated but remains critical to the insurgents' ability to survive, according to a Senate report released Tuesday.

The two spy agencies believe that Taliban leaders receive about $70 million a year from Afghanistan's lucrative poppy crop -- far lower than the $400-million estimate released last year by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Al Qaeda's dependence on drug money is even less, according to the report by the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which found that "there is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds go to Al Qaeda."

The lower estimates suggest that other avenues of funding -- including money from wealthy donors in Arab states in the Persian Gulf region -- remain important sources of support for insurgent and terrorist networks straddling the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nevertheless, the report notes that "the insurgency is a relatively cheap war for the Taliban to fight," meaning that the militants do not need significantly larger subsidies from drug trafficking to finance their operations.....

[Merlin]

I notice this quote below on reading the above LA Times article again. The quote mentions a different but disturbing conclusion from this Senate Committee report.

In one of its most disconcerting conclusions, the Senate report says the United States inadvertently contributed to the resurgent drug trade after the Sept. 11 attacks by backing warlords who derived income from the flow of illegal drugs. The CIA and U.S. Special Forces put such warlords on their payroll during the drive to overthrow the Taliban regime in late 2001.

"These warlords later traded on their stature as U.S. allies to take senior positions in the new Afghan government, laying the groundwork for the corrupt nexus between drugs and authority that pervades the power structure today," the report says.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government has been stained by allegations of corruption and connections to drug trafficking. Still, Karzai is widely expected to be reelected next week. ....