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This is a thoroughly bad idea
Monday, October 22, 2007 | No comments posted.
What is it with the U.S. government’s obsession with herbicides as a remedy for insoluble problems abroad?
Spraying Agent Orange as a defoliant in Vietnam didn’t win the war and has been associated with massive health problems. Spraying coca bushes in Colombia didn’t halt the cocaine trade. Now the Bush administration is pressuring the weak Afghan government to allow aerial spraying of poppy fields to break the opium trade, which is financing the growing Taliban insurgency.
That’s a thoroughly bad idea. It won’t work in Afghanistan any more than it did elsewhere. And if it takes place, it may even accelerate the alienation of Afghan farmers from their government, shifting their loyalties ever further toward the Taliban.
The facts are stark. Afghanistan has become a narco-state, supplying 93 percent of the world’s opium, a trade that makes up close to 50 percent of the country’s economy. The Taliban, which cracked down on the cultivation of opium poppies as anti-Islamic when it was in power, now profits from it by raking in a fat cut to provide security for shipments across Afghan borders.
But aerial spraying would also destroy the food and feed crops routinely grown alongside poppy fields, as well as potentially cause long-term health problems from human exposure. If the goal is to fend off the Taliban insurgency, the solution is to persuade NATO to treble or quadruple its 30,000 troops. If the goal is to halt opium production, farmers would have to be bought off with very expensive subsidies to grow tomatoes. Neither is an easily accomplished solution. But the aerial spraying of herbicides is no solution at all.
Newsday, Long Island, N.Y.
On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/26k3p9
Spraying Agent Orange as a defoliant in Vietnam didn’t win the war and has been associated with massive health problems. Spraying coca bushes in Colombia didn’t halt the cocaine trade. Now the Bush administration is pressuring the weak Afghan government to allow aerial spraying of poppy fields to break the opium trade, which is financing the growing Taliban insurgency.
That’s a thoroughly bad idea. It won’t work in Afghanistan any more than it did elsewhere. And if it takes place, it may even accelerate the alienation of Afghan farmers from their government, shifting their loyalties ever further toward the Taliban.
The facts are stark. Afghanistan has become a narco-state, supplying 93 percent of the world’s opium, a trade that makes up close to 50 percent of the country’s economy. The Taliban, which cracked down on the cultivation of opium poppies as anti-Islamic when it was in power, now profits from it by raking in a fat cut to provide security for shipments across Afghan borders.
But aerial spraying would also destroy the food and feed crops routinely grown alongside poppy fields, as well as potentially cause long-term health problems from human exposure. If the goal is to fend off the Taliban insurgency, the solution is to persuade NATO to treble or quadruple its 30,000 troops. If the goal is to halt opium production, farmers would have to be bought off with very expensive subsidies to grow tomatoes. Neither is an easily accomplished solution. But the aerial spraying of herbicides is no solution at all.
Newsday, Long Island, N.Y.
On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/26k3p9
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