US Afghan poppy drive a 'failure'
http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action=3Dshow&type=3Dnews&id=3D2618
24. January 2008, 05:21
BBC News - A former US ambassador to the United Nations has criticised
President George Bush's attempts to eradicate the opium poppy fields
in Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke has described the US policy as
"spectacularly unsuccessful".
The administration is "wasting" around $1bn annually on a programme
which actually encourages farmers to sup****t the Taleban, he says.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, only 13 of
Afghanistan's 34 provinces are "poppy free".
The problem is specially acute in the unstable south of the country.
'Ineffective'
Writing a column in The Wa****ngton Post newspaper, Mr Holbrooke says
Mr Bush's vocal sup****t in the last two years for aerial spraying of
poppy fields highlighted what was wrong with the US policy.
Mr Bush's remarks "are part of the story behind the spectacularly
unsuccessful US counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan", he says.
Mr Bush backed down from backing aerial spraying because the Afghan
government and the international community argued it would "create a
backlash against" Kabul and Wa****ngton.
"But even without aerial eradication, the programme, which costs $1bn
a year, may be the single most ineffective programme in the history of
American foreign policy," Mr Holbrooke writes.
"It's not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taleban
and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan," he
writes.
With the Taleban insurgency still raging, counter-narcotics teams in
Afghanistan have been unable to make any impact on the poppy problem
in the south.
Experts say stopping poppy production requires more than just laws.
The authorities have to also provide alternative livelihoods for the
cultivators and build access to markets and education, among other
things - things which are very difficult to deliver in an unstable
environment.
On May 6, 5:44 am, lc <lol7...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Narrow mission for Marines in lush Afghan poppy fields
> Troops battle Taliban, leaving alone illegal crops, in skirmishes in
> the volatile southhttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5750778.html
> JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press
> May 2, 2008, 11:58PM
> GARMSER, AFGHANISTAN =97 Gunfire zings in near Sgt. Dan Linas' patrol,
> pinning his squad down against a dirt berm. The Marines peer across
> the field to their left, at three mud huts and a grove of trees,
> searching for the muzzle flash. Then they cut loose with their M-16s.
>
> The sun is barely up, but for the men of Bravo Company's 2nd Platoon,
> the firefight proves just the first in a series of skirmishes Friday
> that will see Marines unleash earsplitting barrages of machine-gun
> fire, mortars and artillery, most of which land just 600 yards away.
>
> To the east, north and south lie bountiful fields of opium poppies, to
> the west an unseen enemy.
>
> Airstrikes and artillery have thundered around this southern Afghan
> town since several companies of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit
> took the offensive before dawn Tuesday and swept into Garmser, which
> sits in Taliban territory where no NATO troops had ventured.
>
> Moving into the south
> The British military is responsible for Helmand Province, but its
> 7,500 soldiers, along with 2,500 Canadian troops in neighboring
> Kandahar, hasn't been enough manpower to tame Afghanistan's south. So
> the 2,400-strong 24th Marines have come to help.
>
> The push into Garmser is their first mission since arriving from the
> U.S. last month, and it is the farthest south that American troops
> have been in several years. Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in
> Afghanistan operate along the border with Pakistan.
>
> Some of the men in the 24th Marines have seen combat in the toughest
> parts of Iraq, and their commanders hope that experience will help
> calm the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
>
> The Marines in Garmser do not plan a long stay. Their only mission is
> to open the road for a Marine convoy. They sit and defend the 10-foot-
> wide lane of dirt.
>
> After returning fire from the berm across the empty field, the men
> under Linas =97 a 21-year-old from Richmond, Va. =97 jog 100 yards to
the
> platoon command center, where Marines in the lookout post provide
> covering machine-gun fire.
>
> The platoon mortar team then dials in coordinates and fires off shells
> in high arcs toward the suspected location of Taliban fighters,
> throwing up puffs of smoke in the field. There is no way to tell if
> any militants are hit.
>
> In the foreground, perhaps 40 yards from the Marines' post, a half
> dozen Afghan men work in their illegal poppy fields, slicing the bulbs
> to coax out opium resin that will be used to make heroin. They look up
> as the mortars boom out, then go back to work.
>
> Mere moments later, the Marines hear a rocket being fired in the
> distance. Everyone rushes for cover, pu****ng themselves up against mud
> walls or down into trenches. The boom of exploding missile rattles the
> outpost but it's a couple hundred yards off target.
>
> 'Pure harassment'
> A wave of gunfire rings out as Marines react, until sergeants shout
> for the men to cease fire. One Marine infantryman with a team still on
> the berm states the obvious: "They missed."
>
> Capt. Charles O'Neill, the company commander, says all-day potshots by
> Taliban fighters are little more than nuisance attacks. The militants
> use binoculars and have forward observers with cell phones to try to
> aim better at the Marines, he says.
>
> "This is pure asymmetric harassment," he says. "They'll pop out of a
> position and fire a rocket or mortar."
>
> The Marines don't move into the field to take on the Taliban at close
> range. Their mission is to open the road that goes through Garmser,
> and nothing more. NATO troops are not authorized to eradicate poppy
> crops, and the Marines have assured farmers their fields won't be
> touched.
>
> At the end of the day, no Marines are hurt or wounded. The Taliban
> casualty count is not known.
>
> [][]
> Poppy Fields Are Now a Front Line in Afghan War
> May 16,
2007http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?_r=
=3D1&oref=3Ds...
> KABUL, Afghanistan =97 In a walled compound outside Kabul, two members
> of Colombia=92s counternarcotics police force are trying to teach raw
> Afghan recruits how to wage close-quarters combat.
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