WRONG MODEL FOR AFGHANISTAN

There is no question that Afghanistan needs to wage a far more
effective fight against opium trafficking if it ever hopes to achieve
a stable peace. But Colombia - another United States ally whose
narcotics trade is helping finance a lethal insurgency - is not the
model to follow.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what America's top-ranking military
officer, Gen. Peter Pace, recently called for, after the nomination of
Washington's current ambassador in Bogota, William Wood, to be the new
American ambassador in Kabul.

The limited gains Colombia has achieved in recent years have been
offset by an overly generous amnesty program for right-wing
paramilitary leaders and drug traffickers, which has seriously
compromised the rule of law. And American aid has been
disproportionately directed into military and police programs, leaving
far too little to promote alternative livelihoods for Colombia's
farmers. Despite all the money spent, the amount of land planted with
coca crops has risen and the net harvest has been reduced only
slightly. Afghanistan's problems will not be solved by copying these
mistakes.

Last year Afghanistan produced 90 percent of the world's opium - a
rise of almost 50 percent from the year before. The exploding drug
trade is not just a problem for Europe, where most of the heroin
produced from that opium ends up. It is a major destabilizing force
inside Afghanistan.

Drug money, which represents roughly 35 percent of the country's gross
domestic product, is fueling government corruption, financing warlords
- - some pro-government and some pro-Taliban - and adding to a dangerous
disillusionment with President Hamid Karzai's government.

Most of the American aid sent to Kabul since 2001 has gone into
security programs and short-term relief and reconstruction, not the
long-term development on which lasting security depends. This has left
Afghan farmers prey to drug traffickers who often supply the only
credit available, with repayment expected in opium poppies.

And with no visible help coming from Kabul or Washington toward
alleviating crushing poverty, people in Afghanistan's southern
provinces are beginning to look favorably toward a resurgent Taliban.
The significantly increased American aid package for Afghanistan
announced last month needs to focus more on development. Mr. Wood
needs to bring a different set of priorities to Afghanistan, not
simply repeat the mistakes Washington has made in Colombia.