AFGHANISTAN AND DRUGS

Regarding the Jan. 7 Other Opinion piece "The Afghanistan madness": There
is no way that we can fight the war against the Afghan Taliban and the war
against drugs.

As long as Afghan drug lords control the drug trade, we will simply be
funneling money to both sides.

The Afghan people will be crushed between a corrupt Western-backed
government and a Taliban/drug lord coalition also backed by Western money
via the illegal drug market. The only way out is to make the drug trade
legal and taxable and give the Afghan government an anti-corruption
ultimatum: All senior Afghan administrators must be shadowed by a U.N.
professional who will control the purse. The political possibility of one
of these is small, of both almost impossible. At least an anti-corruption
ultimatum if rejected by the Afghan government would give the Obama
administration the political cover it needs to leave before this becomes
his Vietnam. In this case we once again abandon the Afghan people to
endless horror.

With our consent, though, the almost politically impossible can happen.

Please think about this rationally.

Richard Marshall, Raleigh