Winning The War On Drugs

Our efforts in Afghanistan are putting Colombia out of business! Rejoice!

Afghanistan's Helmand province, heartland of Taliban guerrillas fighting NATO forces, is about to become the world's largest drug supplier, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Helmand, a province in the south of Afghanistan, cultivated more drugs than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia, the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) said in its 2007 World Drug Report.

"Helmand province, severely threatened by insurgency, is becoming the world's biggest drug supplier. In Afghanistan, opium is a security issue more than a drug issue," UNODC Director Antonio Marias Costa said in the report's preface.

There's not going to be any money left in the drug supply trade for countries like Colombia. They'll naturally have to move to other crops!

This is one instance where the drug czar and the war czar must have gotten together to make this happen.

Seriously, this is what happens in the desperation of war zones, and it shows that Afghanistan is growing ever worse, six years after the invasion.

Joke of the Day

Conan pretty much nails it on the war czar idea:



I haven't really weighed in on this new hire because I thought it was exactly that silly. To think that the President will just slough off any accountability on Iraq on this "war czar" and that it will fly with the American public is simply absurd.

War Czar?

Um, wouldn't that be the Commander in Chief? Isn't this "war czar" nonsense a way to find someone to blame when Iraq fails to improve, other than the President? Isn't that pretty much how the "Drug Czar" position has been handled, as a convenient scapegoat?

Maybe that's why nobody wants the job.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

We already have generals responsible for day-to-day operations. The "war czar" would just add another layer of bureaucracy. And this is supposed to be the party of smaller government.

What is needed in Iraq is a permanent diplomatic envoy, to try and forge a political solution, a cease-fire, something. Maybe they could get Bill Richardson, he seems to be able to negotiate landmark deals with supposed enemies in his spare time, when he isn't running New Mexico. By the way, he didn't need a "North Korea czar" to do it.