WAR: U.N. Sees Drop in Afghan Opium Growing

A top U.N. official indicated that the amount of opium coming out of Afghanistan may drop in the coming year. Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, indicated that a U.S. sponsored crackdown and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's call for a "holy war" against the drug are having an effect.



Alot of people have been critical of Karzai and the U.S.'s attempts to stem the opium trade. However, this type of action always take time to implement. Look at our own war on drugs? The fact that they are having results this early is very encouraging. The other factor in thier favor is that there is not a huge use of the product in country and the majority is exported. So while people are fighting for thier jobs, they are not fighting to feed thier addiction.

Is this not, infact, the 'acceptable' formation of the term 'jihad', a struggle to keep on 'the path'? Struggling against drugs and vice and whatnot?

Although, on the other hand, a hardliner could argue that, so long as the drugs aren't used by muslims, there is no need to struggle against them, but I don't think anyone over there will pretend that muslims don't have it.

Similiarly, tho a fundamentalist state, Iran has large wine growing regions, but the wine is largely exported (and undoubtedly consumed by zoroasterians and the like). Supposedly 'Syrah' and the australian variant 'Shiraz' are of this persian derivation.

Ok, that was a bit off topic.

I have to wonder tho at seeing a reduction in opium production in afghanistan as being a success. This is the first modest effort post taliban to curb the stuff, so it has to reduce production by some degree.

Well the CIA better get their production up, or the Russians will find some other country to buy from... and then afganistan will have a trade deficit problem....

that poor country needs all the exports it can get... and those poor warlords feed their people with the income... it has worked for centuries, and by god... it will work for the next century also...
BTW... the Kashmir region has been growing opium poppies for centuries... if not in afganistan, they will grow it over the very blurry border... then pakistan makes all the money or india, or china...
why shouldn't our buddies the afganies, make that money?

the reason for this highly sarcastic veiwpont is that the Kasmir opium trade is much like the mexican drug trade... the government tells us what we want to hear...
The drug trade is vital to the day to day income for that country... and probably will always be, as long as the warlords still control the vast rural areas...
The taliban couldn't even stop it, and they cut hands off and killed violators... We just helped make it the prime export again...by bringing them a good old democracy