SCREWING UP A TWO CAR FUNERAL PROCESSION

My High School English teacher, Ms Dixon, use to chide us about the world situation by saying something like, “You can never accomplish anything in life unless you get lighting flashing mad". She's right on! I recently read one of those pieces in the New York Times Magazine that made me lighting flashing mad--Is Afghanistan A Narco-State? It was written by Thomas Schweich, a former senior counter narcotics official in Afghanistan. He seems to know what he's talking about and is taking on the supplier of 90 percent of the world's heroin: Afghanistan. Basically, the good professor (he's now a prof. of law at Georgetown U) says that we weren’t allowed to eradicate the opium fields in Afghanistan because of corruption at the highest levels and a myth that had been perpetuated intentionally that poor farmers are driven to raise poppies as their only livelihood: take away that and we hurt them. According to this article, not so, quite the opposite, the wealthy war lords in the South of the country are making big time bucks from poppies while in actuality the poorer farmers in the North of the country have reverted to traditional crops like veggies, cotton, and wheat and are already making great headway. The wealthy farmer/warlords/profiteers in the South are putting big bucks in their pockets, not to mention the Taliban raking in millions to finance their war efforts.

There were so many disturbing things about this article: the first glaring one is that Schweich would write it to begin with; a high muckedy muck with a good case for how we are screwing up. His patience with the corruption, based on the article, astounded me. The article may be written from his perspective but there is no doubting that he knows what he's talking about and is taking a risk. The second big discouraging issue coming from the article, is the continuing fact that it is a wonder that we ever get anything done given the egos and turf issues, to include the military. Rarely does anyone say “for the good of the country,” or accomplishing the overall mission as opposed to saying what is in it for me or how will this help or hurt my career. And, for me, it is reaffirmed that the present U.S. Administration (Condi Rice came out looking pretty good in the article and let's give her credit) could screw up a two car funeral procession.

From the article, one has to conclude that Afghanistan has become a country where it is only a matter of time until it reverts to where it was or worse, like so many places in our world, self interests trump the people and the good of the country.