U.S. Report Warns of Afghan Drug State (washingtonpost.com): "Heroin production in Afghanistan represents 'an enormous threat to world stability,' and the country is 'on the verge of becoming a narcotics state,' the State Department said in a report released yesterday.
Despite steps by the Afghan government and foreign donors, the U.S. International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said that the Afghan 'narcotics situation continues to worsen' more than three years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government. "
I mean, we've been saying this for 2 years, but its nice that the state dept. is finally catching up.
"Afghanistan's illicit opium/heroin production can be viewed, for all practical purposes, as the rough equivalent of world illicit heroin production, and it represents an enormous threat to world stability," it said.
The area devoted to poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose to 510,756 acres last year from 150,731 acres in 2003. Citing International Monetary Fund estimates that drugs account for 40 percent to 60 percent of the Afghan economy, the report added: "Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state."
The report provides the backdrop against which the U.S. government in September will decide which countries belong on the U.S. list of "major" drug-trafficking and drug-producing states.
The Bush administration will also then decide which nations "failed demonstrably to make substantial efforts" during the previous year to respect international agreements and U.S. legal requirements on counter-narcotics, leaving them vulnerable to losing some U.S. aid.
That's a great idea, George. Withhold money from already instable states... so that they can... become more stable? It's like he thinks he's training a puppy or something, but clearly, this is INTERNATIONAL WORLD POLITICS, and he doesn't have a clue.
"Set aside your ethnocentric, militant traditions..."
