Pubdate: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 2007 Calgary Herald Contact: http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/poppy (Poppy) TURNING OFF THE DRUG TAPS WILL HELP DEFEAT TALIBAN If success in Afghanistan depended only on defeating the Taliban on the battlefield, it could be thought well on the way to done. But, the struggle has an economic dimension. Victory in the marketplace is as much the prerequisite for a new Afghanistan as military control and perversely, it will take more troops to win that battle, too. Its challenges are as formidable, in their way, as those this country's young men and women have confronted with such elan in Kandahar province. Maj. General Tim Grant, until August commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, told the Herald editorial board Thursday the Taliban runs on drug money, and it is unrealistic to expect poor Afghan farmers to resist the temptation of easy money, or the very real threat of Taliban brutality, by declining to grow opium poppies. Only with an alternative income, and a personal-safety guarantee for people hitherto pressed by the Taliban into growing poppies, can the West cut the Taliban's money supply. There are no easy solutions. Simply blitzing the crops leaves destitute a people who don't have much to begin with, (and would be widely resented.) Buying the poppy resin, an idea popular in the European Union, would encourage production of something for which there is already a glut on the legitimate market. As usual, what's most likely to work, takes the most work. There are other high-value crops Afghanistan's poppy-producing areas could grow; Grant describes Afghan grapes as of superior quality, for example, and speaks of a growing trade in pomegranate juice, which commands a premium locally. Even assuming security could be guaranteed, however, the growing areas are far from markets, infrastructure has been damaged in the fighting, and remaining dirt tracks are vulnerable to roadside bombs. There's nothing here beyond fixing; paving roads, for example, reduces the risk from improvised explosive devices, and repairing the vast baked-mud grape-drying kilns often used as cover by the Taliban needs labour, something Afghanistan has in abundance. But it all takes money, and more troops to ride shotgun for ordinary Afghans. This is not Canada's problem to solve alone. It has become, though, the problem du jour. In Grant's view, success in Afghanistan, while not around the corner, is possible. In time, the increasingly useful Afghan National Army must be part of the security solution. But, how quickly the Taliban's drug trade can be cut off turns out to have an aid-and-development component only the rich nations of the West can supply. Winning battles has created the conditions where aid can be of use. It's time to make the investment. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom