If It's Not Super Power, It's Not the Best Heroin

Abu As'ad Khalil links to this article from Knight Ridder. It shows what Afghans are doing to allievate the almost unspeakable poverty that's been brought on by decades of having the misfortune of being a pawn in a superpower chess game: they've turned to massive production of poppies:

Some 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan - opium serves as the raw material of heroin - and the country's late-summer harvest will produce three-fourths of the world's heroin. That will mean further billions for growers, smugglers, corrupt officials and Afghan warlords.

It's also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to al-Qaida and its Islamist brethren said to be regrouping in the mountains of Central Asia.

"Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for international terrorism now," Yuldashov said. "That's quite clear."

But in recent congressional testimony about heroin flow out of Afghanistan, Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen Tandy spoke only of "potential links" and "possible relationships" between Afghan traffickers and terrorists. Drug agents in Central Asia say they're baffled by Tandy's hedging.

"The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said Col. Alexander Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with border guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons, ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism - it's a closed circle."

Look at that last line again. Drugs, weapons, ammunition, terrorism...sort of a small market version of EXACTLY what the US does around the world. Interestingly, someone whom I admire and trust a great deal was telling me pretty much just that recently--drugs and guns make the world go round.