Peace with poppies: opium in Afghanistan.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Brief article

"THE FARMERS are not our enemy," the State Department's Richard Holbrooke declared in June, referring to Afghans who grow opium poppies. Since the U.S. government's official goal is to wipe out their livelihood, the farmers could be forgiven for misunderstanding. To reassure those who interpret ripping up their crops as a hostile act, Holbrooke said, "we're going to phase out eradication."

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Acknowledging a truth that the Bush administration steadfastly refused to concede, Hob brooke, the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, told the Associated Press that "eradication is a waste of money." Although "it might destroy some acreage," he explained, "it didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar" Indeed, "it just helped the Taliban" by driving farmers into the arms of the theocratic rebels.

Although Afghanistan's counter-narcotics minister responded to Holbrooke's remarks by insisting that "our strategy's perfect," he may be the only person outside the Taliban who thinks so. Last year, according to the U.N. Office on...