Afghanistan has been in the news lately for several reasons. One of these being a record opium production. This caused me to look at the doublespeak going around.
On this site we hear about the huge production in Afghanistan http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060908/53672793.html
MOSCOW. ( RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - For the umpteenth time now, Afghanistan is breaking all records in opium production, and is ready to flood Europe with first-grade heroine.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the area sown to opium poppy has increased this year by 59%, and reached 165,000 hectares against 100,000 hectares last year, while the gross opium harvest will amount to 6,100 tons.
Afghan experts maintain that this year opium will be exceedingly rich in morphine. A mere seven kilograms of raw opium will produce one kilogram of heroin.
This ratio is very rare. Usually it takes from 10 to 15 kilograms of opium to make this amount. According to UNOCD, last year's harvest - four thousand tons of raw opium - produced 400 tons of heroin. The current concentration of morphine in 6,100 tons of raw opium will make it possible to get more than 870 tons of heroin. This is a fantastic scale.
The article then goes on to say that the Afghans can't take care of eliminating the problem and neither
will the United States or NATO:
Is there a way to combat Afghan drugs? Afghans cannot do this themselves - either economically, or by force. As for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), it has to have a special UN mandate to destroy opium fields, and heroin-producing labs.
Neither the United States, which leads the anti-terrorist coalition, nor the NATO leaders, who have headed ISAF, will ever request such a mandate from the UN Security Council. The U.S. is even less likely to do so. It stays in Afghanistan not under the UN aegis.
NATO's general secretary says it is a huge problem but will have no part in stopping it. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/07/europe/EU_GEN_NATO_Afghanistan_Narcotics.php
"I want ... an international solution. Afghanistan's government must realize and is realizing this is a huge problem," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, adding, however, that NATO will not play a leading role in the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan.
"The international attention should be stepped up. It's not as simple as saying 'let's burn the poppy fields,'" he said.
According to my memory the Afghans when they were under the Taliban were quite capable of eliminating the opium production.
http://opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001 8:19 p.m. EST
U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer.
A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year.
How 5 years can change things!
But how did they do it?
From the same site we learn:
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, banned poppy growing before the November planting season and augmented it with a religious edict making it contrary to the tenets of Islam.
The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 percent of Afghanistan it controls, has set fire to heroin laboratories and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops.
So maybe it really is as simple as setting fire to the labs and offer the farmers some alternative instead.
The first link above says that they did try that last year at least the burning part of it, but they were not popular with the locals.
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa has dispelled the illusions about Europe's potential anti-drug action at the international conference on Afghan drugs in Moscow. In his words, pilot ISAF involvement for the destruction of opium fields and chemical labs did not produce the desired effect in 2005, but only generated tension in relations with the locals. Now the efforts will concentrate exclusively on logistics and training of the Afghan personnel.
One should remmeber as it is easy to forget that the international community is very very keen on being friendly with the locals and not causing tension, which was the whole idea behind bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age and the continual bombing of wedding parties and the likes. A key strategy in winning hearts and minds. This successful strategy was later to be used in Iraq. 
Another interesting thing is how opium is turned into heroin. The first link above shows some light on this:
From two to six tons of acetic acid anhydride is a reagent required to produce heroin from one ton of raw opium.
Maria Costa said that more than 10,000 tons of this anhydride was brought to Afghanistan last year to produce heroin from the 4,000 tons of raw opium harvested. This was a real caravan of more than 500 twenty-ton trailers.
The acetic acid anhydride is not made in Afghanistan, and is only available in China, India, and Russia. It is a real mystery how such caravans can remain unnoticed in Afghanistan with its poor road network, or in approaches to it.
As this years production is 60 % higher, namely 6,100 tons, then it would require about 15,250 tons of acetic acid anhydride equal to 762 twenty-ton trailers using the same proportions as used in the quote.
That requires quite a bit of logistics to transport that much into the country and then again to get the 870 tons of pure heroin out again. 870 tons is about 44 twenty-ton trailers!
Britain is the leading the international anti-narcotics effort according to the Guardian last Friday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1867378,00.html
There is alarm in countries suffering the heaviest losses. In Canada the NDP party recently suggested that the country's military should abandon Afghanistan and enter peace talks with the Taliban.
The sense of panic was heightened by a recent UN announcement that opium cultivation has risen by a staggering 60% this year, underlining the failure to stamp out the drugs trade and associated corruption. Britain leads the international anti-narcotics effort.
90% of the heroin in Britain comes from Afghanistan http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allArticles/9D9026DF27C190EF8725717900561876?OpenDocument
The British government's commitment to Afghanistan is not just military support and reconstruction - but a pledge to taking on the drugs problem.
And when you realise that around 90% of Britain's heroin originates in Afghanistan you can see why it's an attractive political goal.
There appears to be glaring disparities between what is said by the various politicians and military commanders and what is happening on the ground.
When one looks with an Orwellian eye at things then it does make sense in a strange way:
Britain leads the international anti-narcotics effort.
becomes
Britain leads the international narcotics effort.
and
Now the efforts will concentrate exclusively on logistics and training of the Afghan personnel.
becomes
Now the efforts will concentrate exclusively on logistics and training of the Afghan personnel in getting 800+ twenty-ton trailers in and out of the country smoothly.
and
...NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, adding, however, that NATO will not play a leading role in the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan.
becomes
... NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, adding, however, that NATO will play a leading role in the fight for narcotics in Afghanistan.
So I wouldn't hold my breath with regard to the elimination of the opium trade in Afghanistan or elsewhere as long as the pathocracy rules. It is BIG BUSINESS and fills up quite a number of slush funds.
Anders
