Bush Grants Drug Sanctions Waiver to Afghanistan (and Columbia):
According to a U.S. member of the International Narcotics Control Board, opium production in Afghanistan is flourishing, despite a ban imposed by Afghanistan's new interim Government. Herbert Okun qualified his assessment of increased post-Taliban opium production by noting that there are no viable alternatives to opium production for Afghan farmers. "We need to wean the peasants of Afghanistan away from growing the opium poppy so crop substitution is required," said Okun. "It has to be serious and it has to be sustained. We hope it will happen soon, and we hope it will be successful." Critics of alternative-development schemes, which essentially involve subsidizing legitimate crops to the extent that they end up more valuable than illicit crops, contend that creating a global welfare state is a rather
expensive proposition.
Despite the post-Taliban increase in opium production, the Bush administration has waived drug sanctions against Afghanistan. Colombia was also waived, making the two largest producers of heroin and cocaine exempt from drug sanctions due to national security interests. According to some, the questionable waivers highlight the political
nature of the drug war, which is allegedly used as a convenient excuse for a unilateral foreign policy. In Afghanistan, the good heroin traffickers in the Northern Alliance helped America defeat the bad Taliban opium farmers. At present things are heating up in Colombia's civil war, were the Colombian military is working hand in hand with brutal paramilitary death squads who tax the drug trade. Whether or not the free market narco-terrorists will prevail over the communist coca growers remains to be seen. |
