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| Arab Media Blasts Karzai for Harboring Drug Lords |
| 2008-07-28 |
| Drug production has skyrocketed since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban. I don't like posting al-Jazeera material, but this article reveals fallout of US complaints against Karzai's brazen harborage of fellow Pashto drug gangsters, notwithstanding their symbiotic relationship with the Taliban. In 2007, nearly 200,000 hectares of land in Afghanistan was used to cultivate poppy - more than double the area in 2003 – and the country produced 93 per cent of the world's supply of opium, the raw material of heroin. Karzai says his government is succeeding in the war on drugs and has repeatedly promised his US backers that he is committed to rooting out endemic corruption and fighting the drug trade. His counter-narcotics ministry says 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces will be poppy-free this year, compared to 13 provinces in 2007. UN statistics confirm that eradication is progressing in non-Karzai sections of Afghanistan. But in the south, cultivation remains rampant. |
| Posted by:McZoid |