Oh, Here's Another Crisis You Might Want to Notice (2): Afghanistan/Pakistan

The New York Times reports today:

Backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery, Pakistani security forces on Tuesday shut down a crucial supply line for NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan as they launched an offensive against Taliban militants who dominate the Khyber Pass region.

The famous trade route, used for more than half of military equipment for US and NATO troops, is now under constant threat from local insurgents --- under the umbrella term of "Taliban" --- who fire on convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.

The official US/NATO line is that the shutdown is "a temporary irritation", but the US is scrambling to find new routes through central Asia.

Afghanistan: Stiffening Our Allies to Win the War

Listen up, all you sceptics about our strategy in Afghanistan. We've got a secret to win this war:

Viagra.

You heard right --- the gift that keeps on giving is going to ensure the locals flock to our side to whip the Taliban. Joby Warrick, in the middle of an extended I-heart-the-US-military series for The Washington Post, explains:



The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

Warrick, in serious journalist mode, is careful to seriously intone that these "tactics and operations...are largely classified". But he can seriously assure us that "this is how some crucial battles in Afghanistan are fought and won".

So if you're lying awake at night, not because of your own Viagra-related concerns but because you might think that we're on the verge of a pretty nasty confrontation in Afghanistan in 2009, don't wonder why journalists have come this far from talk of reconstruction through schools, community organisations, electricity, and roads.

Just keep the faith in the little blue pills:

After a long conversation through an interpreter, the retired operator began to probe for ways to win the man's loyalty. A discussion of the man's family and many wives provided inspiration. Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted.

Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

"He came up to us beaming," the official said. "He said, 'You are a great man.' "

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."

The Power of the Poppy: A Radical Solution for Afghanistan?

Writing for The Daily Beast, Reza Aslan, a fellow at the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, suggests:

The opium crisis in Afghanistan is not a drug enforcement problem, it is a national security issue: Licensing and regulating poppy cultivation would not only create stability and economic development, it could sap support for the Taliban and help win the war in Afghanistan.

How Opium Can Save Afghanistan
Afghanistan may be one the poorest countries in the world, but by legalizing and licensing opium production it could conceivably become the Saudi Arabia of morphine.

It is a measure of just how great a failure the counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan has been that, after six consecutive years of record growth in poppy production, including a staggering 20 percent increase last year alone, American and U.N. officials are actually patting themselves on the back over a 6 percent decline in 2008. “We are finally seeing the results of years of effort,” said Antonio Maria Costa, who heads the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime.

Yet this meager decline has almost nothing to do with international eradication efforts and everything to do with the law of supply and demand. As The New York Times reported in November, the Taliban have begun forcibly curbing poppy production and stockpiling opium in order to boost prices, which had fallen sharply due to a glut in the market. Indeed, Afghanistan has produced so much opium—between 90 to 95 percent of the world’s supply—that prices have dropped nearly 20 percent.

The truth is that the poppy eradication effort in Afghanistan, which consists mostly of hacking away at poppy fields with sticks and sickles, or spraying them from above with deadly herbicides, has been nothing short of a disaster. All this policy has managed to achieve (excluding that vaunted 6 percent decrease) is to alienate the Afghan people, fuel support for the Taliban, and further weaken the government of president Hamid Karzai, whose own brother has been linked to the illegal opium trade. Meanwhile, poppy cultivation is now such an entrenched part of Afghanistan's economy that in some parts of the country, opium is considered legal tender, replacing cash in day-to-day transactions.

In spite of all this, the U.S. State Department is planning to expand its crop eradication campaign. Last year, President Bush tapped the former ambassador to Columbia, William Wood, to become U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. Wood, whose nickname in Columbia was “Chemical Bill,” because of his enthusiasm for aerial fumigation, has been charged with implementing in Afghanistan the same crop eradication program that—despite five billion dollars and hundreds of tons of chemicals—has had little effect on Colombia's coca production.

It is time to admit that the struggle to end poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a losing battle. The fact is that opium has long been Afghanistan’s sole successful export. Poppy seeds cost little to buy, can grow pretty much anywhere, and offer a huge return on a farmer’s investment. Only the Taliban has ever managed to significantly reduce opium production in the country (as it did during its late-1990s rule)—a feat managed by executing anyone caught growing poppies. It is no exaggeration to say that we have a better chance of defeating the Taliban than putting a dent in Afghanistan’s opium trade. So then, as the saying goes: if you can’t beat them, join them.

The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), a policy think-tank with offices in London and Kabul, has proposed abandoning the futile eradication efforts in Afghanistan and instead licensing farmers to legally grow poppies for the production of medical morphine. This so-called “Poppy for Medicine” program is not as crazy as it may sound. Similar programs have already proven successful in Turkey and India, both of which were able to bring the illegal production of opium in their countries under control by licensing, regulating, and taxing poppy cultivation. And there is every reason to believe that the program could work even in a fractured country like Afghanistan. This is because the entire production process—from poppies to pills—would occur inside the village under strict control of village authorities, which, in Afghanistan, often trump the authority of the federal government. Licensed farmers would legally plant and cultivate poppy seeds. Factories built in the villages would transform the poppies into morphine tablets. The tablets would then be shipped off to Kabul, where they would be exported to the rest of the world. These rural village communities would experience significant economic development, and tax revenues would stream into Kabul. (The Taliban, which taxes poppy cultivation under their control at 10 percent, made $300 million dollars last year.)

The global demand for poppy-based medicine is as great as it is for oil. According to the International Narcotics Control Board, 80 percent of the world’s population currently faces a shortage of morphine; morphine prices have skyrocketed as a result. The ICOS estimates that Afghanistan could supply this market with all the morphine it needs, and at a price at least 55 percent lower than the current market average.

Thus far, the Bush Administration has balked at this idea, despite a warm reception from the Afghan government and some NATO allies. There is a fear in Washington that such a proposal would contradict America’s avowed “war on drugs.” But the opium crisis in Afghanistan is not a drug enforcement problem, it is a national security issue: Licensing and regulating poppy cultivation would not only create stability and economic development, it could sap support for the Taliban and help win the war in Afghanistan.

So which will it be? The War on Drugs? Or the War on Terror? When it comes to Afghanistan, we can only choose one.

UPDATE: Thousands Rally Against US and NATO in Pakistan

Following up on a post earlier today, a reader in India sends us this from AFP:

Thousands rally against US, NATO in NW Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec 18, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of protesters rallied in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, demanding that Islamabad end its logistical support for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The crowd of about 5,000 demonstrators chanted "Allahu akbar" (God is greater), "Crush America" and "No to NATO supplies" as they marched through Peshawar, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The rally came amid a recent spike in attacks by Taliban militants on NATO and US supply depots on Peshawar's outskirts, close to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas -- a hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity.
International forces in Afghanistan are hugely dependent on Islamabad for their supplies and equipment, with about 80 percent transported through Pakistan and then across the border.
The chief of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, told protesters: "It is a shame for an Islamic country to supply logistics to the US, which is working against the interests of Muslims all over the world."
He demanded the government abandon its role as an ally in the US-led "war on terror", warning that if logistical support is not suspended, "we will force the government with public support to halt all supplies."
On Wednesday, missiles fired by suspected Taliban militants targeting a NATO supply convoy killed a woman and wounded her two children in the Khyber tribal district, on the main supply route into Afghanistan.

And this, from December 16:

BRUSSELS, Dec 16, 2008 (AFP) - NATO played down Tuesday a recent spate of attacks on depots and convoys on a key Pakistan route, saying that supplies were still getting through to its force in strife-torn Afghanistan.
"The Pakistani route is still open, is still safe," Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, the head of NATO's military committee, told reporters. "At the moment, the supplies are passing.
His remarks came after haulage companies in Pakistan said they had stopped delivering to foreign troops in Afghanistan after a major deterioration in security along the supply route to the Khyber Pass.
The bulk of the supplies and equipment required by NATO and US-led forces battling the Taliban insurgency on the border is shipped to Pakistan's largest port, Karachi in the south.
From there, the containers of food, fuel, vehicles and munitions are taken by truck to depots outside Peshawar before being transported through Pakistan's restive tribal areas to Afghanistan via the Khyber pass.
But the fabled road passes through the heart of Pakistan's tribal zone, a largely lawless region turned hideout for militants since the US-led ousting of Afghanistan's Taliban regime at the end of 2001.
Di Paola said that NATO was looking to diversify its supplies, with progress being made on an agreement with Russia to allow non-lethal equipment to be shipped through to its troops.
"We are looking to open multiple routes of communication," he said, noting that talks with Turkmenistan were also advancing. "The more lines, the better."
Pakistan's army chief vowed last month to help keep NATO's supply line open.

Pakistan: You May Want to Notice This

The story only gets one paragraph in The New York Times, and I haven't seen it elsewhere in US and British newspapers:

Thousands of antigovernment protesters demanded Thursday that Pakistan shut the route along which supplies are ferried to American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The demonstration, staged by more than 10,000 people in the city of Peshawar, also focused on a recent series of American missile strikes against targets suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Leaders of the demonstration drew links between the missile attacks and the supply line, saying the equipment was being used for attacks on Pakistani soil and vowing to shut down the convoys.

So now it's not just "Taliban", attacking NATO warehouses and destroying hundreds of trucks, who are threatening the US-led supply operation for the forthcoming "surge" in Afghanistan. (Take note, Washington Post, which is still catching up with that story.)

And why might thousands of demonstrators in Pakistan take to the streets against the US/NATO campaign in Afghanistan? Before you say "extremism", "Taliban sympathiser", etc., consider:

A deadly United States military raid on a house near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan became a new source of tension on Thursday, with the Americans calling it a successful counterterrorism strike and the Afghans saying it left three innocent civilians dead and two wounded.