Poppies for Bin Laden

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0211/p08s01-comv.html

With spring coming soon in Afghanistan, thousands of farmers are preparing to nurture young poppy plants. By summer the plants will ooze with opium that's made into heroin to feed the global drug trade that generates the cash for Afghan warlords, the Taliban, and, ominously, Al Qaeda.

It's flower power the world doesn't need.

On Monday, NATO's military commander, US Marine Gen. James Jones, said the drug trade in Afghanistan must be curbed because it is "an economic lifeline which probably fuels what's left of the Taliban and Al Qaeda."

After being banned under the Taliban, the opium trade has ballooned, and may now account for more than 40 percent of the Afghan economy, supplying much of the world's heroin. The British, after being charged with solving the problem, tried to pay farmers to eradicate poppy fields. But the financial incentive only led new farmers to jump in. And no one has found an alternative crop that's as lucrative.

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