The Opiate Option

A potentially fatal weakness in the NATO deployment in Afghanistan is unwarranted complication of "the mission." Our forces are there to battle a Taliban-led insurgency. The first mission is to secure the Taliban inundated south. By taming the Pashtun provinces NATO can enable long-overdue restoration projects to resume. That's mission two.

Mission one and mission two are all that the meagre NATO force can hope to handle and even that is far from a sure bet. The prospects of success are further dampened by the additional complications that will have to be addressed.

Complication One is government corruption that extends to the bureaucracy, the Afghan army and the Afghan police. The police, in particular, have a severe corruption problem. They shake down villagers and farmers, driving these people to the protection of the Taliban.

This is beyond NATO's scope but it must be dealt with and that responsibility has to fall to the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai. He must do a thorough housecleaning of every room in his government. That means he must also purge the criminals and thugs he's appointed to key positions in his country's law enforcement service. These people have to go if only because they're compromising the validity of the Karzai government.

Complication Two is the opium resurgence. The approach thus far, has been to eradicate the poppy fields but it hasn't worked. The country's opium production has soared to record levels and has been embraced by the insurgents. Destroy a farmer's crop and you take the food out of the mouths of his family and drive all of them into the arms of the Taliban.

One practical solution proposed by the Senlis Council would have the U.S. purchase the opium crop. There is apparently such a shortage of opiate-based anaesthetics that the Afghan crop could be put to medical use. Besides, this policy works. The Americans themselves proved that in Turkey. If there's a legitimate market for the stuff, why not buy it up and cut the insurgents out of the business on the criminal side?

What do we gain by rescuing Afghanistan from the Taliban if it remains a failed, narco-state? Is that worth the lives of our soldiers and relief workers?

Complication Three relates to the need to modernize Afghan society and its values. We tout Karzai as a leader bringing democracy to this country. That's the image we like to see. Yet what kind of a democracy is it really when women remain oppressed by Sharia law; where fathers can sell their daughters, some as young as 9; where women are thrown into prison for refusing forced marriage?

We are constantly told that a key purpose of this invasion was to liberate the Afghan women from the yolk of Taliban rule. The Taliban may be gone but the oppression remains, even in the northern provinces which never fell to the Taliban.

If our forces are fighting and dying for the freedom of these women and girls, somebody needs to make that clear to Karzai. He needs to start governing his country. If Afghanistan is allowed to languish in some medieval culture, feudalism will continue to trump any effort at democracy.

Complications One, Two and Three: corruption, opium production and basic, civil rights for women are beyond the scope of the NATO mission and yet it's essential they be tackled effectively and now if the NATO deployment is to have any hope of success.

If we're not going to see to it that these issues are properly addressed by the Karzai government, we're wasting our time and squandering the lives of those we send there to die for a hopeless mission.