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Afghan Poppy Failure Likely to Impact War Efforts
Afghanistan's poppy crop - the source of most of the world's illicit opiates - appears to have suffered a devastating failure this year, according to US and Afghan officials, in a development that is likely to affect the course of the war as US-led forces withdraw.US commanders and Afghan officials, who ascribe the poor harvest to blight, expect the Taliban to reel as opium revenues dry up in coming months. "It's a blow to the insurgency," Kandahar Provincial Governor Tooryalai Wesa said. The provincial government of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , which accounts for half of the country's opium cultivation, has hailed the blight as a "divine decree" by Allah himself. The small crop, however, is also certain to bankrupt thousands of ordinary farmers, possibly pushing them to join the insurgency. Already, three farmers have did away with himself in Helmand because of the failed poppy harvest, local officials say. Opium prices, meanwhile, have soared. A kilogram of dry opium now sells at the farm gate for more than $300, up from some $200 in March, and just $80 or so in 2009, according to United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... surveys. Such a high price is "scary," as it is likely to lead to increased opium cultivation next year, while also bringing a windfall to large-scale dealers who hoarded last year's stocks, cautioned Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the Afghanistan representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. "This is definitely not good news at all ... Those who already are hedging will definitely gain," Lemahieu said. "Who will lose out on this? The poor farmers, who often have engaged in expensive loans against the opium to be harvested.
Whether a blessing or a disaster, the poppy blight injects another complication to the US-led coalition's plans to transfer security responsibility to Afghan forces and withdraw most of their own troops by 2014, a transition discussed Sunday at the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... summit in Chicago. Afghanistan was virtually poppy-free in 2001, the year when the country's Taliban rulers eradicated opium cultivation in a failed bid to win international recognition, and the UN disputes American assertions that the Taliban are the main beneficiaries of the Afghan narcotics trade. "The narrative of the Taliban as the major player is something I do not take," Lemahieu said. "The narcos are not on the side of the Taliban, they are in collusion with the Taliban." Posted by: trailing wife 2012-05-24 |
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