AFGHAN'S OPIUM RACKET

While the focus of the $87.5 billion Congress approved for war-making and
reconstruction was on Iraq, it is important to note that some of the package
was designated for use in Afghanistan.

The irony of the American taxpayer digging deep for Afghanistan - all
deficit spending - is that it is estimated that Afghanistan's earnings from
sales of opium in 2003 - 75 percent of world production - are approaching a
billion dollars, almost as much as the United States is putting in and
entirely destructive in terms of its impact on the world.

A further irony is that the Taliban government that the United States ousted
in 2001 had brought Afghan opium production and sales pretty much under
control, through draconian but effective measures.

President Hamid Karzai's government clearly does not favor Afghanistan's
leading role in the world drug trade, because it displeases his country's
potential benefactors, but also because it constitutes a major, negative
distortion of Afghanistan's economy. But there is little if anything Mr.
Karzai can do about it while the authority of his government does not extend
beyond the suburbs of Kabul, his capital, in a country the size of Texas.

The Kabul government's span of control still depends almost entirely on the
presence in Afghanistan of some 5,000 international troops under NATO
authority and another 8,500 under direct U.S. command. The NATO forces are
assigned the task of keeping things under control while the Karzai
government increases its governing capacity. The U.S. forces are there to
continue the hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban personnel still at large and
operating in Afghanistan, including Taliban head Mullah Omar.

U.S. forces are still taking losses in Afghanistan as combat continues, a
total of 40 since October, 2001, something that is overlooked in this
country, given all the attention to continuing casualties in Iraq.

There should come a point in the near future when the Bush Administration
takes a long look at what is going on in Afghanistan and lays down a
timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces there.

As for the anomaly of the United States financing the reconstruction of
Afghanistan while the Afghans themselves rake in millions through the opium
trade, that would suggest an urgent need for the Bush Administration to
state some hard truths to the Karzai government about what is needed.

It is interesting to speculate on how long the American public will tolerate
the bizarre combination of a tie-down of thousands of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, coupled with reconstruction aid financed by U.S. borrowing,
alongside vigorous, uncontrolled Afghan production and dealing of opium. The
situation calls for a close look, and a remedy, while it is not yet a
domestic American political issue.