As if the United States needed more evidence that its sixteen-year mission in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility, a new United Nations report provides an additional reason for depression.
The 2017 Afghanistan Opium Survey from the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, released on November 15, confirms that Washington’s effort to curb illicit narcotics trafficking in the country has failed.
The National Interest reported that overall opium production reached nine thousand metric tonnes, compared to 4,800 tonnes in 2016.
That was a record level since the UN began keeping statistics on the product in 1994. Some 328,000 hectares were used to grow poppy (the source of opium), an increase of nearly 50 percent from the previous record set in 2014.
According to the report, it would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the Taliban is the only financial beneficiary of the opium trade. Key officials in the Kabul regime, both under Ghani and his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, have profited handsomely from that commerce.
Follow TKG on Twitter & Facebook
