Poppies...Poppies...

Poppies. The wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz used them to put Dorothy and her companions to sleep, and it took the intervention of someone much more powerful than the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, or the Cowardly Lion to overcome their dangerous and deadly effects. The good witch Glynda had to step in and prevent the poppies from keeping their powerful hold over the poor lost souls. Judging from the piece I read today by Michael Yon, that same kind of intervention is necessary in Afghanistan. He's written an interesting and sobering article on opium poppy farming in Afghanistan, and what it will take to eradicate the lucrative poppy business, which is funding the resurgence of the Taliban. According to Yon, that resurgence is putting the military and political gains from previous victories in Afghanistan very much in peril.

Poppies, as it turns out, are extremely easy to grow in the conditions Afghanistan's terrain and climate provide--so easy, in fact, that unskilled and illiterate farmers find the income poppy production offers almost irresistible, given their limited resources. Yon believes that, considering all the money the West is continuing to spend to fight the ongoing battle against Taliban control of Afghanistan, we need to commit the money and personnel required also to eradicate the poppy fields, and, what is equally important, to provide farmers with the resources to profitably grow alternative crops. This means equipment and education, not just seeds. Yon's belief is that the military has not sufficiently addressed the problem of poppies and the benefit they are to the Taliban, and that this is one of the main reasons that Afghanistan is still very much in danger of being lost despite all the early successes in overturning the oppressive regime and establishing a democratic government.

The dispatch is not entirely negative. Yon does show how other options are being made somewhat available to Afghan farmers, but he believes those efforts have been very inadequate to date, and that they must be dramatically improved if the situation is to change for the better there in the future. He also makes it clear that he, among others, believes that Iraq became a distraction from finishing the job in Afghanistan. I don't know that he's saying Iraq should never have happened, so much as that Afghanistan has suffered from the divided attention and resources. It is clear, however, that he sees both Iraq and Afghanistan as going badly at this point, and that the cause in Afghanistan is a lack of adequate resources and the Western will to destroy the poppy crops before they can supply the Taliban. He believes that destruction is imperative, and that it needs to be convincingly conveyed to farmers that poppy crops will not be tolerated. He makes it clear that along with that zero-poppy tolerance must come the provision of those alternatives that will still enable the farmers to take care of their families without the valuable opium crop:

The alternative crops approach can work, and there are other ideas for alternative economies not mentioned here. People are thinking about it. But we are not moving fast enough on long overdue and badly mismanaged reconstruction efforts. We are not taking the opium threat seriously, and so we literally are subsidizing a deadly enemy with poisoned blood and dirty money. Western money will flow into Afghanistan whether we invest it wisely or not. We’ve seen what happens when we ignore the place.

It's revealing that the Taliban, which used to destroy poppy fields when they were in control of Afghanistan, now is supporting poppy farmers and protecting the crops. They are playing the wicked witch's role to the hilt, abandoning their former "moral" stand against opium production, because now it is in their financial interests and gives them what they truly want--power. We're being called on to be Glynda, here. In this particular story of Oz, it falls at least partly to the allied forces of the U.S. and Europe to break the financial hold that poppies have over Afghanistan's poor lost souls. Yon believes we need to focus on that goal, or the money from poppies will continue to strengthen the Taliban, and the Taliban will eventually regain the ground the initial war took from them. It's quite a dark prediction. It's like saying the wicked witch of the Taliban will get the ruby slippers in the end and the evil flying monkeys will be free to wreak whatever havoc their vengeful hearts devise. Yon believes there are changes that can prevent this, but they had better happen now.

Note: Yon's piece is the third in a series. The first part is here and the second here.

Update: I wanted to note that I don't agree that Iraq has taken away from our ability to properly take care of our responsibilities in Afghanistan, unless Yon means politically. Our military is perfectly capable of prosecuting both campaigns at once. The challenge, though, does increase with the constant nay-saying at home and the impulse to placate political adversaries who were demanding that the exact path out of both countries be spelled out before we ever went in. I appeal to the history of WWII and the nation building the U.S. did afterwards in Germany and Japan. Those were both long and extremely messy recoveries, with protracted military involvement, but the results were so beneficial to the world that I doubt there are any mentally stable people who would denounce those efforts, or their cost. It is wise, however, to heed the warnings of people like Yon, on the ground in Afghanistan, and encourage the government to invest as much as is necessary to eradicate the poppy crops. Terrorist thugs still have a hold in that country, and their grip has been gaining in strength. Yon is not the only person with first hand knowledge to say so, not by a long shot. It's still a front in the ongoing War on Terrorism, and those of us at home need to be vocal in our support for the war effort.

Truce

I know I've been a bit out of the loop the last few days, what with the Fair and all, but just because I let my reading slip is no reason for major events to occur in my absence. I can't believe I missed this--Pakistan has ceded territory to the Taliban? There is now an "Islamic Emirate of Waziristan," recognized in a Taliban/Pakistani truce? Bill Roggio, writing at The Fourth Rail, describes the results of the agreement:

The Pakistani government has ceded a region the size of New Jersey, with a population of about 800,000 to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan is not the end of the Taliban's expansion, however. An intelligence source indicates similar negotiations between the Taliban and the Pakistani government are being held in the agencies of Khyber, Tank, Dera Ishmal Khan and Bajaur. The jihadi dreams of al-Qaeda's safe havens in western Pakistan have become a reality. And the gains made by the Coalition in Afghanistan have now officially been wiped away with the peace agreement in the newly established Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.

Read Roggio's post for more details, including the terms of the truce, which don't seem to favor Pakistan, and, some sources indicate, include a safe haven for Osama bin Laden. I'd love to put a positive spin on this one, but I may need some help getting there. Any suggestions? I'm looking for the U.S. reaction to the news, and will report back if I come up with anything. You do the same, okay?

Hat tip: Instapundit

Update III: I moved this update up, because it answers a pertinent question from the previous paragraph. According to Forbes.com, posted today, Pakistan has denied that the truce will provide bin Laden with safe haven:

"Pakistan is committed to its policy on the war on terror, and Osama caught anywhere in Pakistan would be brought to justice," the country's top army spokesman, Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told The Associated Press.

Of course, the key phrase here is "caught anywhere in Pakistan." The catching part has been a problem.

Update: According to this report, from Jonathan S. Landay at McClatchy Newspapers, the truce went ahead with U.S. approval, although Landay, like Roggio, says that what the truce did was free up Taliban fighters in Pakistan to go join the battle against U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, now that the militants are not busy fighting the Pakistani army. Despite how this looks, though, I have to believe that if the U.S. encouraged the truce, there has to be more information that we don't know. Why would the U.S. back something so totally against its interests?

Update II: This report, from Yahoo!News India, sees the agreement as a good thing, and says that the truce carries a Taliban agreement that local tribesmen will stay put and stop fighting--and not head into Afghanistan:

No local tribesman would be allowed to enter Afghanistan to attack US-led coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan under the agreement signed on Saturday by pro-Taliban militants with the Pakistan government to ensure 'permanent peace' in the volatile northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, The News International reported from Miramshah in Waziristan, quoting intelligence officials.

Under the agreement, which is likely to be unveiled by the government next week, militant will halt all attacks on government officials and security forces, and the army 'will not carry out operations against them,' said an area intelligence official on condition of anonymity, the newspaper reported.

'This is a good development because the Taliban have promised to stay away from militancy,' said the official. 'The Taliban have also agreed to distance themselves from foreign militants' hiding in the area, he added.

I note that it's local tribesmen that are prohibited from crossing the border, but with the number of foreign Taliban fighters in Pakistan, which I understand to be quite high, I'm not sure that this restriction is very meaningful, and I'm very sure that this portion of the truce will be hard to enforce anyway. Militant Islam does have a habit of talking out of both sides of its mouth.

The Forgotten War

Michael Yon is an independent journalist currently working in southern Afghanistan. I first read his dispatches when he was embedded with the military in Iraq. I was drawn to his work because he writes what he sees. He doesn't sugarcoat it, nor does he have a political agenda. Through his writing, I got to experience, as much as one can through someone else's eyes, what our soldiers are facing and accomplishing in Iraq. He made me proud of them. He made me fear for them. He made me know that they can do the job they've been given, and do it with honor, even though that job is extremely difficult, and greatly under-appreciated. I have come to trust his perspective.

Now he's in Afghanistan, again as an independent journalist, but not embedded with the military this time, and once again, he's writing what he sees. It's sobering. Our soldiers call it the forgotten war. The Taliban is by no means a thing of the past. There are areas in the south that they still control, and the threat is growing. The opium harvest will be bountiful this year, and the heroin that will enslave a new generation of unfortunate children will finance more weapons for the Taliban to work their destruction. They like to target schools, especially schools that teach girls. They have not lost their desire to control the lives and thoughts of others, nor to some extent, their ability to do so.

By Yon's account, there simply are not enough Coalition Forces to quell the Taliban's continued quest for regional domination. The Taliban is bold, and growing bolder, and there are not enough troops to eradicate them. This is not a war the U.S. is fighting alone. The British and Canadians, Australians, Italians, Dutch, and even French are there beside us, but by Yon's tally, all of them, Americans and allies, are there in insufficient numbers. His own life is at risk, as an American journalist, especially one not travelling with the military, but I don't believe that this is coloring his view. He writes what he sees.

I know there are many people who will say that the reason there is still such unrest in Afghanistan is that we should never have gone on to Iraq, that we were diverted on to a completely separate, and unnecessary, confrontation. I don't agree, but I won't spend a lot of time and words here debating the merits of either war. At this point, it is what it is. What I will say is that there has been so much media and political pressure, from before either war even started (or the start of the general war on terrorism, if you will), to form an exit strategy, and avoid a quagmire, so many comparisons to Vietnam and accusations of imperialism, that our nation has been only half committed from the very beginning. We started seeing demands to bring the troops home before they even all got there. The generation that brought us the Vietnam protests were already primed to relive their youth, and all those calls for withdrawal, although they haven't made us leave Iraq or Afghanistan, have weakened our determination to do what it takes to win outright.

If, as an entire country, we were determined to commit the resources necessary to win outright, and kept an overwhelming number of troops in the theater until the task was completed, not just mostly completed, I do not believe we would be seeing the resurgence of the Taliban. They might still be there licking their wounds, but they would not have control over the lives of anyone else. If we were determined, as a united nation, to eradicate the poppy fields, or even just to pay the farmers not to grow poppies, and applied overwhelming resources to accomplish it, we certainly would not be having the biggest poppy harvest in years coming out of Afghanistan. This is not because of Iraq. This is because we were determined to get out as fast as possible, before we were even on the ground to assess the situation.

The will of the people may not seem very powerful when you look at what goes on in Washington. Corruption, and spending gone wild, and tin-eared politicians do tend to make it seem fruitless to even care what policy decisions are made. However, the people can be heard when they shout loudly enough. Look at the immigration reform debates. Whether you're on the side of illegal immigrants, or fence-builders, you are part of a vocal group that has forced Washington to at least attempt to deal with an issue it would much rather have ignored. The cries of quagmire and Vietnam also have carried weight in Washington. Where are the cries for more troops in Afghanistan, enough to do the job? Where are the calls to commit what is necessary now, rather than have this conflict drag on unfinished? Where is the commitment to finish the liberation of the Afghani people? Michael Yon is calling for it. He writes what he sees.

Note: Michael Yon also sent me to this photo essay by Phil Zabriskie. Watch it. Really.

Update: Strategy Page has news that's more encouraging.

May 24, 2006: The last two weeks have seen an ambitious Taliban offensive shot to pieces. As many as a thousand Taliban gunmen, in half a dozen different groups, have passed over the Pakistani border, or been gathered within Afghanistan, and sent off to try and take control of remote villages and districts. The offensive was a major failure, with nearly half the Taliban getting killed, wounded or captured. Afghan and Coalition casualties were much less, although you wouldn't know that from the mass media reports (which made it all look like a Taliban victory). The Taliban faced more mobile opponents, who had better intelligence. UAVs, aircraft and helicopters were used to track down the Taliban, and catch them. Thousands of Afghan troops and police were in action, exposing some of them to ambush, as they drove to new positions through remote areas.

On the less cheerful front, it looks like the Taliban is using remote regions of Pakistan as a hiding place/staging ground. The Afghanis and Brits are accusing the Pakistani government of looking the other way, while the Taliban operates, but in the government's defense, they've never really had control of some regions of their own country. (HT: Instapundit)