One of the other wars we've lost

The Arizona Republic editorialized on 03/07/08 about how Drug trade is global threat, but it's really about the Afghanistan War. They write:

The Taliban has become the world's narcotics pusher. These terrorists exploited other people's weaknesses while turning Afghanistan into the source of 93 percent of the world's opium poppy.

According to the latest State Department report on the international narcotics trade, opium production in Afghanistan nearly doubled since 2005, and the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai has been unable to stop it. The export value of this year's illegal opium harvest is more than a third of Afghanistan's combined gross domestic product.

The United States has spent $150 billion to build stability in Afghanistan since 2001, and it has 28,000 forces in the country. With opium flourishing and undermining efforts to secure the country, questions about whether this represents a failure of U.S. foreign policy are legitimate.

Yet debating past policies should not become a distraction from the larger issue: What's going on in Afghanistan is a big problem.

What, are we going to go back to making the "war on drugs" an excuse to intervene wherever our wise leaders decide to intervene? Oh, by the way, we lost that one, too, but that's another story.

Now, when I see an assessment like that, my thoughts run along the lines of, we've been at war there since 2001. Opium production has exploded, the central government still rules little outside the capital's city limits, and even there it's not sure secure. But this editorial doesn't see it as a reason to take a serious look at disengaging from that growing disaster. They see it as a reason for European nations to send more troops there:

National intelligence director Michael McConnell told Congress last week that the U.S.-backed Afghan government controls only 30 percent of the country. That country's government disagrees, claiming there is only 5 percent of Afghanistan that is "absolutely" out of control. Even that assessment would be reason for alarm, but we're inclined to believe McConnell's more gloomy figure. ...

At next month's NATO summit, President Bush is expected to ask Europeans to send more troops to southern Afghanistan. It may be a hard sell for a lame-duck president with low popularity ratings.

But our European allies should not see this as a referendum on Bush. They should see it as a necessary step in their self-defense.

Tags: afghanistan war