LETTER: Getting out of Afghanistan was the right move
Afghanistan has been the world’s leading producer of illicit drugs for decades, principally hashish and opium.
Their poppy harvest produces more than 90% of the heroin in the world. This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, war lords and drug traffickers. Production of this opium provides around 400,000 jobs, more than the Afghan National Security Forces.
The country has been invaded, in modern times, by the British, French, and the Soviet Union. All were unsuccessful and pulled out. When President George W. Bush announced the first U.S. military action in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he said the goal was to attack the Taliban. We have done that for 20 years and spent more than $2 trillion. In addition, debt and medical costs will continue long into the future. The human cost of this effort, for both the US and the Afghan people, has been enormous.
After all of this, we have nothing to show as a result. We enriched hundreds of politicians, government workers and soldiers with our cash, and when their country needed them they ran. We learned nothing from Vietnam or Afghanistan except our American hubris is false. We are not the world’s policeman. Getting out of this war was the right move. We couldn’t have won because there’s no winning. The demand for opium, which we help to create, still rules.
Bob Willison
Rices Landing