• March 5, 2008

Afghanistan on the Burner

Afghanistan on the Burner

Here’s a bit of nostalgia for the past: In 2003, we worried because Afghanistan was cultivating 80,000 hectares of opium. Now that figure is 200,000, and Afghanistan accounts for fully 93% of the world’s opium supply. What’s a State Department to do? Deprive farmers of their only source of income? Or focus on other issues–like the fact that security’s deteriorated to the point that President Karzai only controls 30 percent of the country? (Unless, wait: aren’t those pesky narcodollars the reason we’re having trouble with narcoterrorists in the first place?)

You make the call. In the meantime, consider the fact that our current ambassador to Afghanistan just arrived from another beneficiary of U.S. crop eradication–Colombia–one fair signal of the State Department’s plans.