GENERAL JOINS WAR ON DRUGS

Canada's Fraser Suggests Farm Subsidies Could Loosen Poppy's Grip On
Afghanistan

Imagine this: A poppy board, akin to the Canadian Wheat Board, that
would subsidize Afghan farmers not to grow the ruinous narcotic.

Brig.-Gen. David Fraser hasn't just imagined it. He's put his
thoughts down on paper and submitted the proposal to political and
military authorities.

It might be a radical concept. But, during his recent eight-month
term as commander of the multinational brigade in southern
Afghanistan -- troops from eight countries, deployed to six of the
most volatile provinces, and last summer formally transferred to NATO
authority -- Fraser came to grasp some harsh realties on the ground
in that benighted country.

The poppy cannot be burned out of Afghanistan's soul or eradicated
from its economy by sledgehammer measures. Spraying it with toxins
from the air or setting the fields aflame won't substantially
suppress its cultivation, nor make potential allies of embittered and
impoverished farmers. It certainly won't break the monopoly of a
narco-alliance -- neo-Taliban and drug lords -- that has been raking
in the billions, profits spiking even higher when the crop is
marginally decreased, as it was in 2005 (by 5 per cent). Those
profits go a long way to finance the insurgency that has killed 44
Canadian soldiers.

"Counter-narcotics is an objective that we support," Fraser told the
Star last week, as he passed through Toronto on his way to Europe,
and a farewell tour of sorts. "But at the grassroots level, the
people growing the poppy are doing so because they don't view it any
differently than we look at corn or canola.

"On top of that, the Taliban coerces people to grow poppy because
they get the proceeds. Our fight is not with the farmer. He's not
getting the bulk of the money from his crop, but it does pay well for
an Afghan. So you've got to give (him) an alternative."

The knot of the problem is that yields from substitutes -- melons or
wheat or pulses, all traditional Afghan crops -- are nowhere near as
profitable and much more difficult to grow in an arid landscape. As
Fraser notes, the Afghan farmer makes no moral distinction over poppy
and the criminal network it supports. It puts food on his table in
the world's fifth poorest nation.

"I have made recommendations to the American ambassador and the
British ambassador and my military chain of command," says Fraser.
"In order to achieve the kind of narcotics objectives that we need to
get to, without disenfranchising the people that we are there to
support, how do we get them off that thing called the poppy? What I'm
suggesting is giving them an alternative to grow legitimate crops
that have markets and paying them a decent price for that commodity.

"You and I might call them farm subsidies. But why not subsidize
farmers there to grow something that's legitimate, as opposed to
something illicit? ... We have farm subsidies here. They have them in
Europe, they have them everywhere, for wheat and eggs and milk."

He says subsidies would not be "a panacea. ... But it's a start."

It would be, further, a more practical endeavour than simply buying
up the poppy yield for international medicinal purposes, as suggested
by some proponents, because the therapeutic market for heroin is quite small.

These have been reflective days for Fraser, since he turned over
command to Dutch Maj.-Gen. Ton Van Loon in October. Much of his time
has been spent meeting the families of troops killed and injured in
Afghanistan. He's a soldier, but his eyes dampen when he speaks of
lives lost and young bodies lamed.

"I wake up every day and remember. People walking into my office with
that look and I knew it was bad. The phone ringing in the middle of
the night and I knew it was bad. The door-knock at three o'clock in
the morning and I knew it was bad. Who's hurt? Soldiers killed,
friendly fire, innocent civilians. I remember it all, like it was
five minutes ago. I don't talk about numbers .. (or) body counts.
It's about the number one: One soldier, every soldier."

Public polls may indicate Canadians are weary of this mission, a
majority opposed to the extended deployment or skeptical over its
outcome. Fraser rejects those views, and points at continuing support
from families of those who've died.

"I challenge the claim that the situation has become worse since we
arrived. The rot of the Taliban was there, but you didn't see it as
much because nobody was challenging them. The year before we got
there, yes, you could go to places like Sangin and have tea. But that
didn't mean it was safer. It meant the Taliban ran the town and we
weren't a threat to them at that stage. A year later, the government
of Afghanistan shows up with a different mayor, with a chief of
police, with an army and says, this is our country, we have the right
to rule here, we're establishing our rule with the help of the
international community. All of a sudden -- boom -- the Taliban are
fighting the government of Afghanistan. So, is the situation worse?
No, the situation is actually starting to go back where it should be,
where you have the democratically elected government ruling that part
of the province."

In recent weeks alone, Taliban forces have conceded considerable
territory to NATO, according to reports from the field, and insurgent
leaders have been arrested and killed during raids and air strikes.
Even the Taliban's media shill, Mohammed Haniff, was taken into custody.

Fraser rattles off figures that quantify what NATO troops, including
2,500 Canadians, have brought to Afghanistan. "In the time I was
there, we built 145 kilometres of new roads. We created 100,000
metres of canals. We elected over 400 community councils. We have a
national auxiliary police program, 200 of them (in Kandahar) when I
left and the program had just started -- an opportunity for males 15
to 25 years old, where they can get a job that pays them a decent
salary and provides them a life expectancy longer than what the
Taliban are offering."

A career soldier, Fraser nevertheless understands that Afghanistan
resurgent -- rather than insurgent -- isn't ultimately about
battlefield victories, like last summer's Operation Medusa. It's
about a vision for the future that Afghans can believe in and
tangible proof of something better in the present.

"You win with an idea. You don't win with a gun."