One Easy Way to Blow $7.6 Billion: Try eradicating Afghanistan’s poppies

The U.S. military learned the hard way not to interfere with Afghanistan’s thriving production of poppies, the colorful flowers that are the source of opium and, by extension, heroin.

Now we know the cost of that lesson—a cool $7.6 billion. On Oct. 14, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction—a.k.a., SIGAR—alerted the Defense, State and Justice Departments to this latest dollar figure for poppy-elimination efforts.

And here’s SIGAR’s kicker. Despite the nearly $8 billion America has spent on eradication efforts, today the Afghan opium trade is booming. At 400,000 acres, the poppy crop in 2013 was the biggest ever.

Although it would have been upsetting to the Afghans, there's a simple and cheap way to do it. Set up some Predator drones with crop sprayers. When a drone spots a poppy field (the flowers are colorful), spray the field thoroughly with a powerful herbicide, and fly away.

Eventually, poppy growers will get the message.

Afghanis are the bootleggers of the Islamic world. Like the Chicago mob (which they resemble in no little degree), the various factions have bought off the supposed enforcement agencies at the local level, and blithely continue to produce one of the highest-margin cash crops in the world.

For the Chicago mob, it was the illicit trade in liquor, at a time when its production was to be “for medicinal purposes only”. Where else have we heard that argument, “for medicinal purposes only”? Just about everywhere there is a concerted effort to circumvent the control and limitations on powerful or highly addictive substances.

Hemp was once very useful for the production of rope. But it had this one little by-product, you know, that could cause a certain degree of “detachment” when used in a particular manner. No end of mischief from the “improper” channels for distribution of this by-product, doncha know.

Now this is what we have in the production of opium, a very little bit that “could” be used for “medicinal purposes”, and an awful lot that gets into “improper” channels.

Terrorism and widespread criminal acts are fueled by trade in these illicit substances. Which is why they are illicit in the first place.

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