The United States and NATO cannot be faulted for increased poppy cultivation in Afghanistan since in the final analysis it is up to the Afghan people to eliminate this scourge from their midst. President Hamid Karzai has spoken many times about the need for international assistance, acknowledging that pomegranate orchards and other legal crops were being eradicated to make way for poppies. Unfortunately, he apparently does not have any real power. The complex and complicated nature of Afghan politics, so ably described by Schweich, probably dooms whatever inclination Karzai might have to destroy the poppy fields, as no amount of foreign aid is likely to halt the dynamics of this multibillion-dollar drug trade.

Larry Vigon

Chicago

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