US forces in Afghanistan fall to bust the drugs

The US State Department's internal watchdog on Wednesday criticized the agency's nearly $2 billion anti-drug effort in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy, Associated Press news agency reported. The department's inspector general said the Afghanistan counter-narcotics program is hampered by too few personnel and rampant corruption among Afghan officials.

In fact the US inspector admitted the thing all international experts and first of all Russian experts had been pointing at for a long time: de facto Afghanistan has become a state ruled by drug lords and it happened during the US military campaign.

According to Director of the Russian Federal Service for Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Circulation Viktor Ivanov, since the beginning of the Enduring Freedom campaign and the entry of NATO and US troops to Afghanistan in 2001, the production of opiate production has rocketed 44 times. According to a UN report, Afghanistan accounts for more than 90% of illegal opium production in the world. The country houses more than 400 mini factories producing drugs where not only local citizens but also foreigners are working. At the lowest estimate, the shadow Afghan economy annually receives more than $400 million from drug sales. The lion's share of these profits is controlled by the Taliban movement and its militants always have enough money to buy new weapons.

Russian experts have repeatedly drawn Washington's attention to the obvious link between the drug traffic and illegal weapon traffic in the Asian region. But the US until recently considered it to be the problem of Russia and Central Asia countries, which neighbor Afghanistan.

Moscow continues to take intensive steps to counteract illegal drug traffic with the help of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).  It is under the guidance of CSTO dozens of successful special operations were conducted in Afghanistan. But to reduce the Afghan drug expansion to zero is possible only by joint efforts including intensive participation of NATO.

According to Vladimir Isayev, an expert with the Institute for Oriental Studies, the US lacks any sound plan on how to fight drug production and drug traffic in Afghanistan.

"To fight drug production in Afghanistan it is necessary first of all to give the Afghan farmers an opportunity to cultivate crops which would bring them a stable income. It is also very difficult to fight drug production by force in Afghanistan. The US servicemen are between the devil and the deep blue sea there. On the one hand they should fight drug production and drug traffic in the country but on the other hand they don't want to pit local citizens against them. Considering how difficult the situation in Afghanistan is it is not reasonable to create new enemies there".