An
Afghan farmer tends to his poppies: Of all the nations
trying
to cope with the huge increase in Afghanistan's
poppy
crop, Russia may be having the worst time of it.
Nezavisimaya
Gazeta, Russia
For its Own Good, Russia
Must Help in Afghanistan
"The
priority for Russia is to fight Afghan drug trafficking. … Every year, Russian
drug addicts consume 70 tons of Afghan heroin worth $14 billion. … Among all of
the world's nations, Russia is ranked number one in the consumption of heroin,
accounting for 21 percent of global heroin production and five percent of all
opium-containing drugs."
On the eve of the Russia-NATO
summit to be held in Lisbon on November 20, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen told the BBC that Russian servicemen will continue to participate in counternarcotics
operations in Afghanistan, despite protests from Afghanistan President Hamid
Karzai. However, after the first joint Russia-Afghan-American anti-drug operation
that took place in late October, President Dmitry Medvedev spoke to the Afghan
leader on the phone and agreed on boosting joint efforts to combat drugs.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
We also recall that in
October 2009, an agreement was signed in Moscow between the Federal Drug
Control Service and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Counternarcotics on "combating
the illicit trafficking in narcotic substances, psychotropic substances and
their precursors.” The agreement was the second document outlining the scope of
Russia-Afghan cooperation in fighting the drug menace. The first official
document between Kabul and Moscow - an intergovernmental agreement to fight
drug trafficking - was signed in March 2009, during a visit to Kabul by Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
It should be noted that this
special anti-drug operation was received with great controversy by the Russian
media. The vast majority of comments were that NATO is dragging Russia into the
war in Afghanistan. But we must admit that even after the withdrawal of the
limited Soviet military contingent from Afghanistan, the USSR, and later Russia
and other post-Soviet countries, continued to supply weapons and funding to
certain Afghan warlords to help them secure their borders.
In this case, the priority
for Russia is to fight Afghan drug trafficking. Again, according to the BBC,
every year, Russian drug addicts consume 70 tons of Afghan heroin worth $14
billion. This is the estimate of Antonio Costa, the head of the U.N.’s Drugs
and Crime Office, who spoke in Moscow at a conference called, “Afghanistan Drug
Production: A Challenge for the International Community.”
According to Costa, the
production of opium poppy and other raw materials for the manufacturing of
drugs in Afghanistan has grown by 30 percent over the past two years. The U.N.
reports that among all of the world's nations, Russia is ranked number one in
the consumption of heroin, accounting for 21 percent of global heroin production
and 5 percent of all opium-containing drugs. According to the U.N. Drug and
Crime Office report, “Drug Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: the Threat of Opium
Transit from Afghanistan,” recent indicators show that after the E.U. market
for opiates - including heroin - Russia has become the world’s second-largest.
It is also the largest market for opiates of all individual nations.
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by WORLDMEETS.US
It’s also no secret that
Afghan drug money helps fund global Islamic terrorism, the emissaries of which
are waging an armed struggle in the North Caucasus. For American troops and their
allies in Afghanistan, the problem is compounded by the fact that poppy
cultivation is now the top wage-earner for many Afghan farmers, and that destroying
these crops, which in principle could be accomplished from the air, would lead
to the recruitment of farmers as Taliban militiamen. This explains the
reluctance on the part of the Americans to implement operations like this - the
lack of which Russia has repeatedly criticized.
But destroying
heroin-producing labs is an entirely different story. This will gradually reduce
demand for raw poppy and might persuade Afghan farmers to produce other
agricultural products.
All of which explains why
there is no choice for Russia but to take an active role in counter narcotics
operations in Afghanistan. But this is a job for Special Forces - not the Army.
