NYT: Pentagon Sees Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan

[DeepModem Mom]

Pentagon Sees Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan
By THOM SHANKER

Published: March 25, 2005


WASHINGTON, March 24 - The American military will significantly increase its role in halting the production and sale of poppies, opium and heroin in Afghanistan, responding to bumper harvests that far exceed even the most alarming predictions, according to senior Pentagon officials.

The military will support efforts by Afghan and American agencies, rather than lead them. It will move antidrug agents by helicopters and cargo planes and assist in planning missions and uncovering targets in a stepped-up war on the trade and the heavily armed forces that protect it....

***

To support the new effort, the Defense Department is requesting $257 million, more than four times the amount last year, in emergency financing for military assistance to the counternarcotics campaign, in addition to the $15.4 million in the Pentagon's budget for fiscal 2005, which began last Oct. 1.

The official modifications to the guidelines, now being finalized, are aimed at a poppy harvest that rose 64 percent in 2004, making Afghanistan the world's leading source of heroin and opium.

There is wide consensus in the government and the military and among humanitarian organizations that the drug trade now threatens all of America's goals in Afghanistan. Terrorists and insurgents there finance their activities largely with drug revenues, and the trade could undermine the nascent democratic government of President Hamid Karzai, who has called for a holy war against the opium trade....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/politics/25military.html?hp&ex=1111726800&en=fb85d61c1af0c084&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[mike6640]

1. bwahah n/t

[jdots]

2. Bummer - there goes a neocon's summer house

Earth to Dorris this is one of the reasons royalty went to the golden triangle and Afghanistan.They will just have to own all the water now.

[Moderator]

3. kick to combine

[chlamor]

4. U.S. Steps Up War on Afghan Opium

My comment:More emergency funding for the warlords at the Pentagon of Power. Another in a series of 'War on Drugs'. If you're not skeptical you're not paying attention.

US steps up war on Afghan opium

Pentagon fears bumper harvest will fund militants and destabilise government

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Saturday March 26, 2005
The Guardian

The Pentagon, frustrated by the failure of the British-led battle against opium production in Afghanistan, plans to quadruple the spending on its anti-narcotics campaign, and deploy its troops in a full-scale war on the country's drug lords.

"We are seeking to expand our role," a Pentagon spokesman told the Guardian yesterday. "We are going to try to do more."

It believes the drugs trade is a grave threat to US strategic objectives in Afghanistan, and to the government of Hamid Karzai.

The product of rising alarm at the prospect of a bumper opium crop this year, the plans envisage a greatly expanded role for the 17,000 US service personnel in Afghanistan in blocking the cultivation of and trade in opium.

The Pentagon has asked for $257m (£137.5m) emergency funding to step up the war on drugs, four times the amount it sought last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1445915,00.html

[MichiganVote]

5. Yes, US officials agree to smoke it themselves and save us the trouble

[bahrbearian]

6. Oh goody, a new War!

That'll distract them.

[thebigidea]

7. so, why wasn't there this wide consensus several years ago?

I recall Wolfie at hearings repeatedly sidestepping this issue.

Then I think to myself, my god - how many hours have I wasted listening to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz... sob.