Karzai Weak on Afghanistan’s Opium Trade

Karzai Weak on Afghanistan’s Opium Trade

Five years ago this month, Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, was liberated from the tyranny of the Taliban regime and its "guests," al-Qaida. Five years later, Afghanistan, and indeed the world, lives under the threat of another brutal tyrant: the narcotics trade and the terrorism it funds.

Despite this threat, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who once so passionately announced that counter-narcotics was a top concern, appears to have wilted on the anti-drug message while the opium poppy, from which heroin is derived, flourishes to record levels - the area cultivated increased an astonishing 60 percent over last year, according to the United Nations.

It makes little difference to most Americans whether a junkie in Hamburg, London or Moscow dies in an alley with a needle in his arm. Europe, after all, is where the vast majority of Afghan heroin winds up.

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