Recent reports from Afghanistan indicate that counter-narcotics efforts have met little success. Indeed, Afghanistan produced a bumper poppy harvest this year, with drug profits strengthening the Taliban , associated anti-government warlords and militants, local drug traffickers, organized criminals, and corrupt Afghan officials.
According to a recently published report by the World Bank (WB) and United Nations (UN), Afghanistan?s poppy production accounts for roughly one-third of the country?s gross domestic product. Drug trafficking and production flourish within the permissive anarchic and insurgency-wracked environments throughout Afghanistan, but especially in the southern Helmand province, where the government has been unable to extend its writ and establish security and political-economic development.
Poppy cultivation remains a lucrative and pervasive element of Afghan society, and for many poorer Afghanis, it is the best or only available means of subsistence. Further, many Afghanis are easy prey for drug traffickers, Taliban, and other organized crime and insurgent elements who press them into poppy cultivation through intimidation and incentives. More affluent farmers and top drug traffickers exploit endemic corruption and anarchic regions to build their fiefdoms by bribing local government and counter-narcotics officials to protect crops. Within this environment, according to the WB-UN report, an elite echelon of 25 to 30 top drug traffickers have succeeded in consolidating control of the drug trade.
Indeed, the WB-UN report underscores the profound scope of narco-corruption among local and government officials who protect drug trafficking activities in exchange for bribes, noting:
the ?capture? to a considerable extent of the Ministry of Interior and its use as a means of providing ?protection? for and facilitating consolidation of the drug industry. At the lower levels, payments to police to avoid eradication or arrest reportedly are very widespread. At higher levels, provincial and district police chief appointments appear to be a tool for key traffickers and sponsors to exercise control and favor their prot?g?s at middle levels in the drug industry.
Plowshares into Swords
In addition to rampant narco-corruption among Afghan officials and agencies, drug revenue is increasingly serving as the lifeblood to strengthen drug traffickers, the Taliban, other militant and criminal groups, and corrupt officials, all oriented toward defending the lucrative drug production trade against government and foreign counter-narcotics and counterinsurgency efforts.
In this vein, reports indicate that the Taliban is becoming a narco-terrorist organization composed largely of a constellation of tribal leaders, businessmen, and regional warlords, many of whom profitting from opium trade. Though a nucleus of ideologues remains within the group, the Christian Science Monitor quotes a senior US military official as saying that ??our intel is that most of the guys are just in it to make a buck.? The Monitor also reported that Taliban elements are moving more formally into the opium trade, protecting opium shipments, running heroin labs, and organizing production in areas they control.
Counter-Narcotics vs. Counterinsurgency
While drug production is a long-term destabilizing factor to Afghanistan?s development, ill-targeted counter-narcotics operations and eradication campaigns may have destabilizing effects on counter-insurgency efforts. As the WB-UN report notes, some counter-narcotics efforts have had a withering effect on poorer farmers, driving them deeper into impoverishment. Further, the loss of their poppy crop may deliver them into the beholding of local ruling drug traffickers or Taliban who press them into renewed poppy cultivation. In either case, this segment of the populace is made increasingly susceptible to supporting the Taliban and associated militants as a result being either aggrieved by the government and foreign counter-narcotics actions that destroyed their livelihood or left vulnerable to the coercion of anti-government militants.
Forecast: A Growing Narco-Insurgent Enclave
The UN has predicted a record poppy harvest for 2007. The increasing drug production and revenue will enhance the operational capabilities of the collection of nefarious groups with narcotics interests, strengthen and consolidate their power and control over contested provinces, and bolster their abilities to mount a resistance to government attempts to extend its writ into their areas of operation.
