The United States gets ninety percent of its cocaine from FARC, the Marxist guerilla organization that occupies a big chunk of Colombia. Clearly, decades of bloody anti-drug campaigns have been successful in stemming the flow of drugs up north.
Afghanistan, meanwhile, produces about 90% of the world’s opium, the lion’s share going up to Europe with stops in Xinjiang, Central Asia, and Russia. Eradication efforts so far have served only to strengthen the rule of the Taliban and the war lords. The country is degenerating, not into a religious war, but a drug war.
That’s why I’m so very glad William Wood, the former ambassador to Colombia, has been sent to Afghanistan. He clearly must take his expertise in running an effective drug eradication campaign in one continent and apply it to another.
Anyone else get the feeling we’re headed for disaster in Afghanistan?
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust