When Afghanistan is in the news, it often relates to one of two things: the fight against the Taliban or the massive amounts of drugs coming from the region.
Drugs make up 60% of the economy of Afghanistan according to the BBC country report. The CIA world factbook lists Afghanistan as the world's largest producer of opium (which is used to make heroin, among other drugs). As such, there is also a problem of money laundering, which has (and is) used to finance terrorism in the region, including financing the Taliban regime.
To combat the drug problem, the US and coalition forces have instituted a major counter-narcotics force in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, however, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has condemned the current policy as "the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years." Holbrooke, who spoke at Macalester a few years ago (and I met him too), went on to say that US policy would be more effective if it helped farmers, not corrupt police and officials. The article also notes that despite reduction in acreage cultivated, Afghanistan is estimated to produce 90% of the world's illicit heroin, according to the UN. (Interestingly, I was unable to find any articles on sites such as CNN or MSNBC referring to Mr. Holbrooke's comments regarding the current drug policy in Afghanistan. It could be the keyword search just didn't find those articles.)
What I find most intriguing about this situation is this: the Taliban, an ultraconservative, fundamentalist religious and social movement yet they profit from the not only illegal but immoral drug trade. Is this rationalized because the drugs go to the West were they destroy the minds and bodies of "infidels"? How can involvment in the drug trade be rationalized at all?
A sexual revolution -- women moving up in Iran
-
To continue the focus on women from the reading, I found this article
posted on a non-profit news-source called Iran Focus**'s website. The
article itself...
15 years ago
I think you pose a very interesting question. I believe that the Taliban has justified the drug trade in moral/religious terms as an "attack" on the well-being of the West. (I've heard that the Taliban tried to crackdown on hashish because that is what Afghanis tended to consume, as opposed to opium, which is more favored by the West.) They may have also justified it in their own minds as a necessary practical measure for instituting their regime and Shari'ia law. Opium is the only way to raise money, which is the only way to buy weapons, which are the only effective means to gaining and holding on to power. And I suppose you could also argue that poppy cultivation allows Afghanistan to have an economy free from the influence of Western corporations and "values".
ReplyDeleteThe Taliban did ban opium cultivation in 2000 or 2001 (I can't remember now) on supposedly religious grounds. Some have posited that they only did this as a temporary measure because the balance of supply and demand had been thrown off after a huge crop of opium the previous year, with the result that opium farmers saw reduced revenues (and presumably everyone associated with the drug trade and tax collection did as well.) Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan came immediately after, we'll never know if they intended to take that ban seriously!