Afghan farmers work in a poppy field in Kunar province of eastern Afghanistan, May 16, 2012. According to a UN report, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has been constantly increasing over the past 10 years. It is estimated that the country produces about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw element for making heroin. [Xinhua]
How Did We Allow This Killer Trade To Bloom? -- The Telegraph
The Western powers missed their chance to control Afghanistan’s booming opium crop.
In Chicago yesterday, Nato leaders finalised their programme for withdrawing forces from Afghanistan. As David Cameron said, one way or another the majority of British troops will have left by 2014 – though who knows how many more soldiers will have been killed or maimed by then, to add to the 412 dead and hundreds more severely injured? Who knows, either, what will be left behind: a functioning government sustained by a well-trained army and police force, or a return of the Taliban?
It is, however, especially disappointing that after a conflict that has lasted longer than the two world wars combined and has involved the deployment of hundreds of thousands of Western troops, Afghanistan is still a “narco-state”. Once again, the annual opium poppy harvest is in full swing – a £1.5 billion criminal business responsible for 90 per cent of the heroin on Britain’s streets.
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My Comment: Even some within the Taliban are starting to realize that this is a growing and dangerous problem.