Today there's heroin in our headlines, as the UN drugs watchdog group announces the UK had Europe's highest amphetamine usage. Our supplier, it turns out, is our new neighbor on Democracy Street, Afghanistan.
Link: BBC NEWS
Professor Ghodse warned that Afghanistan was in danger of becoming a "narcotic state" after producing its largest annual crop of heroin - 4,200 tons - since the overthrow of Taleban rule.
He will call for international help for Afghanistan's drugs problem at a press conference in London on Wednesday.
"The Afghanistan government needs to do something very serious, very quickly."
Since allied forces ousted extremist Taleban rulers in December 2001, opium production has increased 20-fold.
Ah! The sweet smell of Freedom! Almost like...poppies! Afghanistan supplies around 90% of Europe's heroin now that the Taliban has been overthrown in favor of American-style laissez faire democracy. No, class, the answer is NOT to vote Taliban in the next election. Instead, those governments that are so eager to "spread Democracy" really should have stuck around long enough to ensure their new puppets government actually worked before heading off to the next freedom frontier.
Only a fraction of the number of troops in Iraq (150,000) are in Afghanistan (18,000). The Afghan government, elected last year, effectively controls (with U.S. and German help) the area around Kabul; the rest of the country is ruled by warlords, who favor poppy production as their number one revenue enhancing activity.
Poppies are pretty flowers, and I'm sure they'd look nice in a centerpiece for that next State Dinner Laura hosts, but an awful lot of Europeans are turning up their noses, so to speak, at Afghanistan's poppies.
This bait-and-switch support for "freedom" reminds me of the abortion argument. Before a baby, i.e. a democracy, is born, conservatives/Neo-cons are all for protecting its rights, by force if necessary. Yet after the "birth", they want to cut the umbilical cord, and let the youngin' flounder: "No health care for you, Junior!" For the newborn democracy, it's "No aid for you, Kabul!" (Or very little: last year the U.S. spent $2 billion in Afghanistan—after we remembered to include them in the budget, compared to around $20 billion for Iraq, of which $9 billion seems to have lined pockets gone missing.) In Afghanistan, the newborn democracy turns to pimping drugs; in Iraq, they've decided to import Shiite fundamentalism:
Link: Baghdad Burning:
“And is Iran so bad?” He finally asked. Well no, Abu Ammar, I wanted to answer, it’s not bad for *you* - you’re a man… if anything your right to several temporary marriages, a few permanent ones and the right to subdue females will increase. Why should it be so bad? Instead I was silent. It’s not a good thing to criticize Iran these days. I numbly reached for the bags he handed me, trying to rise out of that sinking feeling that overwhelmed me when the results were first made public.
("Democracy"? We meant "Theocracy". Same vowels, different constitution.)
I'd never thought I'd be quoting Nancy Reagan, but when it comes to American-imposed "democracy", Just Say No. (Republicans: Spreading Heroin Around the World!)
