Something Nice To Say About Afghanistan

I thought, in the intrest of fairness, that I would post this article I found on MSNBC about Afghanistan's virtual elimination of opium/heroin production despite the universaly negative impact it has had on the country's economy.

After reading this article I have come to the conclusion that while the Talaban is pig-headed, misguided, unjust, evil, dangerous, and many other things, they are at least true to their desire to be pious, and this in my mind has placed them one (small) step above that self-serving two-faced pig Sadaam.


<center><font size=+3>Afghanistan’s cash crop wilts</font></center>

<center><font size=+2>Taliban ban on opium yields impressive results</font></center>



WAZIRAN, Afghanistan — There are few signs of wealth in Afghanistan, but farmer Mohammed Hasan’s shiny late-model Toyota is a dead giveaway. Hasan once grew Afghanistan’s premier cash crop, poppies from which opium is produced. This year is different. He may have to sell his car just to survive.

LAST YEAR, Afghanistan was the world’s largest opium producer, with 75 percent of the world’s crop, a staggering output of some 3,500 tons of one of the most addictive drugs on earth. The opium, a key ingredient in heroin, is smuggled into Europe and Asia, where it commands a fortune on international markets.

So stunning was Afghanistan’s opium production last year that the CIA estimates 39 percent of the world’s supply came from just a single province.

For years the ruling Taliban government relied on lucrative opium sales to fuel its war with opposition forces in the north. Farmers like Hasan earned thousands of dollars a year from their crops — a true fortune in a country where the average monthly income is only a few dollars.

DRUG GROWING DEEMED UN-ISLAMIC

But last July, the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued an extraordinary edict. It banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, calling drug production un-Islamic. Few in international law enforcement took Omar’s edict seriously — until now.
Earlier this month, an international delegation led by the United Nations Drug Control Program — which included two U.S. government narcotics experts — visited Afghanistan to study the impact of Omar’s ban.
Delegates told MSNBC.com that during the 10-day visit they found no evidence of poppy crops anywhere in the survey area, which concentrated on the biggest poppy-growing region of Afghanistan.
“There are no poppies,” said Bernard Frahi, the head of the U.N. program’s Afghanistan project. “It’s amazing.”

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