I find this article somewhat amazing. On the one-hand, you have a DEA agent who is clearly trying to do his best to combat the opium crop in Afghanistan. He wants to do good by the world. He has many trials and tribulations, and his mission to eradicate opium from Afghanistan is ultimately a failure due to narco-corruption at the highest levels of Afghani government. Up to and including the current president. And a good dose of American bureaucracy and political infighting.

On the other hand, you have everyone, including the government of Afghanistan, much of the US government, and most of the US Military, EVERYONE except this guy refusing to do anything about the opium crop because they know it will hurt the poor Afghan farmer and destabilize the government. He does not believe this. He goes on and on about how they aren't growing the plant because they are poor, but because they are rich, and he has some UN report that agrees with him.

But in the end I find him unconvincing on that point, and so his entire argument breaks down. He is a DEA agent, and by definition they do not care about hurting the poor to enforce drug policy. War on poor addicts is DEA policy back home, and he has no trouble applying it to Afghanistan and writing off the suffering of the Afghan farmer wholesale. In fact, he expresses moral outrage that the military objects to our extending the same kind of poverty-persecution that we have in American cities to the poppy fields of rural Afghanistan. Its just the rich guys farming, he says. We need to really show Afghanistan who is boss and eradicate the poppies.

So they can grow some place else. Personally, I think it shows HOPE that Afghanistan is not repeating our mistakes and I wish them well on their poppy capitalism. I only hope that we achieve a sane drug policy that will drive the price down enough that they will grow enough wheat to be self sufficient.

Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? - NYTimes.com