FOR AFGHANISTAN'S FREEDOM, BACK OFF ON WAR ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The war on drugs is interfering with U.S. efforts
to destroy Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. U.S. officials
increasingly want to both eradicate drugs and nurture Afghanistan's
embryonic democracy, symbolized by the pro-Western regime of President
Hamid Karzai.

But they need to face the reality that it is not possible to
accomplish both objectives. Afghanistan has been one of the leading
sources of opium poppies, and therefore the heroin supply, for many
years. Indeed, there has been a steady upward trend in opium
production for more than two decades.

The only significant interruption to that trend occurred in 2001,
after an edict by the Taliban regime banning opium cultivation on pain
of death. (Taliban leaders had an ulterior motive: They had previously
stockpiled large quantities of opium and wanted to create a temporary
scarcity, to drive up prices and fill regime coffers with additional
revenue.)

Today, Afghanistan accounts for nearly 75 percent of the world's opium
supply. During the civil war between the Taliban and the Northern
Alliance, in the 1990s, both sides were extensively involved in the
drug trade.

Since U.S. forces and their Northern Alliance allies overthrew the
Taliban in 2001 and drove them and Al-Qaida operatives into
neighboring Pakistan, the drug commerce has been even more prominent.
The trade now amounts to about $2 billion -- nearly half of
impoverished Afghanistan's annual gross domestic product.

Some 264,000 families are estimated to be involved in growing opium
poppies. Even measured on a nuclear-family basis, that translates into
roughly 1.7 million people, about 6 percent of Afghanistan's
population. Given the role of extended families and clans in Afghan
society, the number of people affected is actually much greater than
that. Indeed, it is likely that 20 percent to 25 percent of the
population is involved directly or indirectly in the drug trade.

For many of these people, opium-poppy cultivation and other aspects of
drug commerce are the difference between modest prosperity and
destitution. They will not look kindly on efforts to destroy their
livelihood.

Unfortunately, this year the U.S. government has increased pressure on
the fragile Karzai government to crack down on drug-crop cultivation.
And in August Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered American
military forces in Afghanistan to make drug eradication a high priority.

This move is a big mistake. The Taliban and its Al-Qaida allies have
already shown a resurgence in Afghanistan, especially in the southern
part of the country. If zealous American drug warriors alienate
hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers, the Karzai government's hold
on power -- none too secure now -- could become even more precarious.

Washington would then face the unpalatable choice of letting radical
Islamists regain power or sending more U.S. troops to suppress the
insurgency.

U.S. officials need to keep their priorities straight. Our mortal
enemy is Al-Qaida and the Taliban regime, which made Afghanistan into
a sanctuary for that terrorist organization. The drug war is a
dangerous distraction in the campaign to destroy those forces.

U.S. officials should look the other way regarding the drug activities
of Afghan farmers. Washington should stop putting pressure on the
Afghan government to pursue crop eradication, and should not make U.S.
soldiers into anti-drug crusaders.

Even those policymakers who oppose ending the war on drugs ought to
recognize that, in this case, the war against Islamist terrorism must
take priority.

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy
studies at the Cato Institute, wrote this article for the Providence
Journal.