According to NPR, "While opium production is not the only stream of income for the Taliban, it is one of the larger ones. According to the United Nations, the Taliban has earned an estimated annual income of $125 million from the opiate market since 2005."
Did you know that? Me either, until a couple days ago. And this seems like a fairly big issue. So why aren't we addressing it?
Oh. Right. Because "we're sending in young people to kill the Taliban" sounds more impressive.
But I don't think that impressive is what we need right now; to me, "effective" is looking pretty nice. Obviously, with the Durand Line, it's going to be next to impossible to stabilize Afghanistan with a mere 30,000 troops and brute force.
A case study on opium in Afghanistan by Jonathon Goodhand asserts that "Due to globalization and the development of trade, traditional ways of sustaining life for villagers has been forced to change. Before people relied on wheat farming and live stock whereas today poppy cultivation is the most prominent economic activity. This can be attributed due to higher profits from poppy cultivation and lack of opportunity for other farming practices due to land scarcity and more accessible loans from money providers for this activity."
The Taliban will never be fully eradicated if their funding remains. Sure, Saudi Arabia isn't helping, but we have less control over them than Afghaistan farmers. What we need to do is create incentives for these farmers to grow something other than opium.
From the Washington Post, "Drug traffickers have a symbiotic relationship with insurgents and terrorist groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Instability makes opium cultivation possible; opium buys protection and pays for weapons and foot soldiers, and these in turn create an environment in which drug lords, insurgents and terrorists can operate with impunity.”
"Opium is the glue that holds this murky relationship together. If profits fall, these sinister forces have the most to lose. I suspect that the big traffickers are hoarding surplus opium as a hedge against future price shocks and as a source of funding for future terrorist attacks, in Afghanistan or elsewhere."
Why are we focusing our efforts on shooting guns when a counter-insurgency war concentrating on this rising drug trade will actually be more beneficial? Sometimes I don't think our government pays attention to what's going on at all.
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