That's true and I wish it was that easy.
At one time, the solution to the problem of Afghanistan's opium growing was much easier. The U.S. could have simply have not started it.
<<< His analysis makes clear that both Burma and Afghanistan have attained this status thanks to the activities of American secret services. "The increasing opium harvests in Burma and Afghanistan (...) were largely the product of CIA covert operations. Just as CIA support for the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) troops in the Shan State had increased Burma's opium crop in the 1950s, so the agencies aid to the mujaheddin guerrillas in the 1980s expanded opium production in Afghanistan and linked Pakistan's nearby laboratories to the world market" (McCoy 1991, pp 440-441). McCoy has described how, during the 1980s, Afghanistan became Europe's main opium supplier, because CIA covert operations transformed southern Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market: "CIA intervention provided the political protection and logistic linkages that joined Afghanistan's poppy fields to heroin markets in Europe and America" (McCoy 1991, p. 441). Although the Americans have left, Afghanistan, just like Burma before it, has remained a major heroin supplier for the world market. >>>
cedro-uva.org
By the way, this is not an isolated incident:
serendipity.magnet.ch
Tom |
