Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan

I remember hearing about this from "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR last year and thought how humorously tragic it was that we could not enforce rules or use our high tech spy network to get information. All it takes sometimes is some old fashion bribery. Yet, that also says more than how funny the situation is, it says that what we have in common in cooperation is so little. There are no hearts and minds to win in this war but bribery and patronage.

Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

"He came up to us beaming," the official said. "He said, 'You are a great man.' "

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."

It is interesting to note that the operative said that last line because it implies that they have no resistance to the drugs and that it was another way to exploit them for "whatever we wanted". Maybe it is all the colonialism that we've been reading from Gregory but this article does show some of that through the operatives' quotes. Such as how they are trying to bridge their primitive gap of life to the 21st by Viagra.

While it makes sense that you have to give something to get something and sex has been a motivator for everyone everywhere, does it make it okay? It is okay that the reasoning behind this is that if we don't do it, someone else will (Taliban, Iran, etc)? Morally, I want to say no. We are using them to our ends while they are perceived to give into carnal pleasure. The article portrays Afghanis as fickle backstabbers,especially as devious high libido old men, that need to be bribed just for cooperation.

Afghanistan and Drugs

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?