Politicians have long suspected that the centuries-old opium industry is funding the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan.
But direct intervention is tricky for US troops. If a key part of their
counterinsurgency campaign is to win the hearts and minds of Afghans,
the thinking goes, Americans can''t be seen as the face of an effort to
burn fields and eradicate a livelihood that is illegal but central to
the country''s fragile financial system. Currently, the US
provides only indirect support. Its policy leaves it to the Afghan
government to contain the opium trade. By international agreement,
British military forces are designated to support the Afghan effort,
but they generally do not take an active role against the trade. With
opium production there skyrocketing, the US House of Representatives
last week passed a $6.4 billion aid and reconstruction package for
Afghanistan that contains a major
counternarcotics component. The
legislation would create a new position in government that would
develop and coordinate a "coherent counternarcotics strategy" for all US government entities working in Afghanistan.
The measure includes an anticorruption initiative that would cut
funding to Afghan local and provincial governments found to be
connected to Islamic terror organizations or narcotics traffickers. The
bill, passed by the full House but not yet the Senate, would also
require the US
military to provide logistical support to as many as 150 US Drug
Enforcement Agency personnel, such as flying them in and out of the
field to conduct operations.