[echocassidyde]

The official line is we are bringing "democracy" and development to Afghanistan, supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai in its attempts to establish order in the country, fighting the Taliban and preventing the further spread of radical Islam into Pakistan.

Oh, I nearly forgot, we're also trying to capture Osama Bin Laden & his organisation, who had been installed and financed there by the CIA to fight the Soviets from 1979-1989.

Like Iraq, the war in Afghanistan is "unwinnable", even the British Empire at the height of its supremacy could not tame the country. It was not winnable by Darius or Alexander, by Shah, Tsar or Great Moghul. It could not be subdued by 240,000 Soviet troops.

But what, precisely, are we trying to "win"?

In six years, the occupation has wrought one massive transformation in Afghanistan, a development so huge that it has increased Afghan GDP by 66% and consitutes 40% of the entire economy. That is a startling achievement by any standards. Yet we are not trumpeting it. Why not?

The answer is this. The achievement is the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen.

The Taliban had reduced the opium crop to precisely nil, although their measures were harsh, i.e., lopping off bits, often vital bits, of people. The Taliban were a bunch of mad and deeply unpleasant religious fanatics but one of the things they were vehemently against was opium. They stamped out the opium trade, and impoverished and drove out the drug warlords, that is about the only good thing you can say about them.

Now we are occupying the country things have changed. According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60%. This year will be even bigger.

Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyound the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what out international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and "value-added" operations.

It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.

How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government - the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.

The fact that one of these is General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is head of the Afghan armed forces and Deputy Minster of Defence is in itself a symbol of the bankruptcy of our policy. Dostum is known for tying opponents to tank tracks and running them over. He recently crammed prisoners into metal containers in the searing sun, causing the many to die of heat & thirst. Since we bought "democracy" to Afghanistan, Dostum ordered a Member of Parliament to be tied to the ground whilst he beat him with a hammer and stamped on his body. The sad fact is that Dostum isn't even the worst or biggest drug smuggler in the government!

Why then are US, UK & other forces still dying in Afghanistan?

As the great diplomat, soldier and adventurer Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Alexander Burnes pointed out before his death in the First Afghnistan War in 1841, there is no point in a military campaign in Afghanistan as every time you beat them, you just swell their numbers.

Our only real achievement to date is falling street prices for heroin in London & New York - what an achievement, what a war!

(with acknowledgements to Craig Murray, British Ambassador to neighbouring Uzbekistan 2002-2004)