The American counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan costs the US tax payers one billion dollars a year. But, according to the former ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke (read his column in the Washington Post here - you need to register), it may be «the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy.»
Ineffective ? Not only. This program is even counter-productive.
«It actually strengthens the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan», Holbrooke says.
According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the area under opium cultivation increased to 193,000 hectares in 2007 from 165,000 in 2006. The harvest also grew, to 8,200 tons from 6,100. The evidence, for the former diplomat, of the failure of this program.
«The program destroys crops in insecure areas, especially in the south, where the Taliban is strongest. This policy pushes farmers with no other source of livelihood into the arms of the Taliban without reducing the total amount of opium being produced. Meanwhile, there is far too little effort made against the drug lords and high-ranking government officials who are at the heart of the huge drug trade in Afghanistan — probably the largest single-country drug production since 19th-century China (‘liberated’ Afghanistan has virtually been turned to a narco-state, producing 90% of the world’s opium, I precise) — whose dollar value equals about 50 percent of the country’s official gross domestic product. There is a direct correlation between opium production and security », he says.
Despite this, very few allies of the US in Afghanistan dare to give them any piece of advice and France is likely about to announce an increase of its military deployment.
