Afghanistan 2007: A Good Year--No, Really, That's the US Position, and We Ain't Letting Facts Get in the Way

I always get hopeful for the new year, and this year I am trying to be hopeful about Afghanistan. (Are you listening St Jude?) Unfortunately, I also listen to the news, and this morning I got to listen to the US Ambassador to Afghanistan say some remarkable (also, I believe, dumb, dangerous, and deadly—the 3-D’s of US Foreign Policy) things. I found them so amazing that I went back on line and listened, and offer these rough quotes so people who aren’t listening to NPR in the morning (also normal people) can read them here (as this blog IS read by normal people—more or less).

Question: You also have a problem-- in that you have a lot of poor people, small farmers who make a little bit of money off of growing opium-- who need that income and you have to somehow attack the [opium]trade without losing their support.
Answer: That's absolutely true. In Afghanistan according to UN studies, the opium poppy, which accounts for 93% of the heroin in the world, is grown in some of the most fertile agricultural land in the country. The small farmers do have alternatives, they could be planting other crops, but that's really not the issue. The question, is whether or not they have the freedom to tell the warlords “No, I do not want to be participate in your drug trafficking. …..” They would not be allowed to say that. So simply offering an alternative is not sufficient. The option has to be removed. That is done through interdiction and it is done through eradication.
JB comment: Ok, I bet I know more normal Afghans (and Americans) than the Ambassador. And he may be right in suggesting that farmers are effectively the slaves of Warlords in some places--but I don't think it accounts for much of the problem. From the people I know, poppy growing is a way of life. They can make at least 10 times more selling poppies than wheat (probably the best second option). Poppy growing existed before Warlords, and will exist long after the US goes home. You can grow corn in Virginia too—but if your family is filled with tobacco farmers, and you can get a higher price for tobacco than corn, why in the hell would a Virginia farmer grow corn instead of tobacco, and why would an Afghan farmer raise wheat instead of poppies? And why do illiterate Afghan farmers know more about supply and demand than the US Ambassador to Afghanistan?

Question: The New York Times reports that there are three separate assessments of US policy going on toward Afghanistan. What don't you know?
Answer: I don't think any of these assessments are being taken with the mind that a major shift in direction is necessary. (JB Comment: A bedrock principle of the Bush administration--we already know everything, but every now and then we need to do a pointless assessment to that we look like we are accepting input). We think that 2007 was a good year—it was a good year on the battlefield and it was a good year institutionally. The problems with drug cultivation and problems of terrorism got worse. But in terms of the national strength of Afghanistan, we're feeling pretty good.
JB Comment: Did he really just say that? I thought ‘But other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?’ was just a joke. This guy just said ‘We had a really good year—except for that pesky war, the beheadings, the drugs, and the terrorism paid for by the drugs’. Holy cow. I mean.....really, wtf?

Well, 2008 should be interesting—though in Afghanistan, I think it will be a bit of deja-vu all over again. If the Ambassador thought 2007 was a good year, I bet he's going to love 2008.

Want to hear this stuff for yourself? Check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17716245