Afghan farmers work in a poppy field in Helmand province. U.S. efforts to eradicate the crop have benefited the Taliban, envoy Richard Holbrooke says. Abdul Khaleq / Associated PressFrom The New York Times:
WASHINGTON — The American-led mission in Afghanistan is all but abandoning efforts to destroy the poppy crops that provide the largest source of income to the insurgency, and instead will take significant steps to wean local farmers off the drug trade — including one proposal to pay them to grow nothing.
The strategy will shift from wiping out opium poppy crops, which senior officials acknowledged had served only to turn poor farmers into enemies of the central government in Kabul. New operations are already being mounted to attack not the crops, but the drug runners and the drug lords aligned with the insurgency.
Ultimately, farmers must be persuaded to plant other crops, including wheat for domestic consumption and pomegranates and flowers for export, officials said.
Michael G. Vickers, the Pentagon’s top civilian official for counter-insurgency strategy, said Thursday that the specifics of the new antidrug effort still needed to be worked out, but that a decision had been reached on the new focus.
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My Comment: In the middle of a war you are going to persuade farmers to "plant flowers for export"??!!?!?!
This is not going to work.
The Taliban were confronted with the same problem 10 years ago, but their eradication plan was simple. If poppy fields were found on a farmers land, Islamic justice (to the extreme) was going to be applied.
After a few show trials and punishment exacted .... presto .... within a year .... all the poppy fields were gone.
I know that NATO and U.S. soldiers are not going to use the Taliban style of justice, but the Central Afghan Government has a lot of authority on this matter, and if they are serious to stop the proliferation of the drug trade (instead of turning a blind eye to it), their justice system (which is also severe) can then be administered.
But .... I doubt that they are going to do anything about it., and the U.S. anti-drug efforts will have the same degree of success as it has had back home .... which is nothing.