THE OTHER AFGHAN WAR

The latest annual report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says
the world's drug problem is "under control." That's not counting the
availability of Afghan opium, which has spiked out of control.

In fact, the presence of 35,000 mostly American troops, along with all
the Bush administration's and President Hamid Karzai's promises, have
seemed only to promote Afghanistan's production of the illegal drug
that is used to make heroin. The religious-zealot Taliban once had all
but eradicated the production. Then the White House veered from
defeating the Taliban and catching Osama bin Laden to Iraqi-democracy
dreaming.

Since then, the trend has been like last year, when global opium
production increased 43 percent to a new record high. Afghanistan
produced 92 percent of that, according to the 2007 World Drug Report
(at unodc.org). Its area under opium poppy cultivation has grown by 59
percent since 2005. Half the world's illegal opium is cultivated in a
single southern province, Helmand.

In contrast, cannabis, the largest illicit drug market with
160"million users worldwide, is produced in 172 countries and
territories. Yet, "The global drug problem is being contained," says
the latest analysis from the Vienna-based U.N. office. "The production
and consumption of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and Ecstasy have
stabilized at the global level."

But in Afghanistan, impoverished opium farmers see themselves at the
mercy not only of the unholy alliance between the opportunistic
Taliban and the drug lords but of policies that to Afghans seem aimed
only at providing some good 'ol boys some fun. "This is redneck
heaven," one Tennessean working as a private eradication contractor
told The New Yorker. "You get to run around the desert on ATVs and
pickups, shoot guns, and get paid for it. Man, it's the perfect job."

Economic development, however, is almost as scarce as Osama bin Laden,
who may be off somewhere running his own poppy farm. The drug boom
finances rampant lawlessness and the Taliban's revival. Increasingly
alienated Afghans see the U.S. and its allies fraternizing with thugs,
when not accidentally bombing and killing civilians.

The U.N. report correctly observes that drug cultivation "thrives on
instability, corruption and poor governance" - exactly what U.S.
intervention should have prevented.