Afghan pink poppy defeats the world’s superpower

Readers of this column may be interested to read the in-depth study by University of Wisconsin Professor Alfred McCoy, entitled “Washington’s Twenty-first Century Opium Wars : How a Pink Flower Defeated the World’s Sole Superpower,”  which you can find online on Reader Supported News (Feb. 23, 2016).

As Professor McCoy points out, “we” (the United States) have spent tens of billions of dollars and expended thousands of American and Afghan lives waging endless war in Afghanistan — and all for what? If we had spent a fraction of those resources helping rural farmers cultivate the land there, grow and sell healthy food crops, current history in Afghanistan would read quite differently.

One has to wonder, who really runs U.S. foreign policy, who really controls U.S. military intervention, and who gains from these foreign interventions? Does the U.S. Congress, or even the president, actually know in detail what’s going on, or do they, at best, learn the truth after the fact from the media, as “We the People” do, when it’s too late to countermand the orders? Here’s an anecdotal factoid, dating back a quarter of a century, to make the point:

Hostage taking

As history records, around 1989 or so, 12 International Red Cross (IRC) workers were taken hostage (for ransom purposes) by renegade warlords up in the mountains of Afghanistan. The World Health Organization (WHO) decided to help go to bat for the IRC because (a) it was “the right thing to do,” and (b) when a third party (e.g. WHO) with some clout intervenes, it weighs more than if the agency concerned (the IRC) is left alone to plead for its own staff.

Accordingly,  several of us in WHO  met  (in sequence) with the leadership of three hostile factions: (1) the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, (2) the Mujahedeen or “Freedom Fighters” (to quote President Reagan), and (3) a small splinter group of differently garbed individuals calling themselves “Talib,” or “scholars and teachers of the Holy Qur’an.” Our objective was to gain enough of a cease-fire so all three conflicted groups could work cooperatively and form search teams to find and free the Red Cross workers.

We had two persuasive weapons at our disposal: (1) $50 million from the World Bank for nationwide child immunization (which could be held up at any time), and (2) the words of the Holy Qur’an itself, banning hostage-taking for money, and requiring humane treatment of prisoners (two prescriptions utterly violated by today’s so-called “Islamic State,” which is neither Islamic, nor a State.)

The outcome: All 12 Red Cross personnel were freed, not one dollar paid, not one drop of blood shed. A few days later the president of the IRC phoned me to thank WHO for the successful intervention. There are times when the weapon of diplomacy outperforms “boots and bombs.” But there’s more to this story.

Charlie Wilson’s War: 
Stinger Missiles

At one point during negotiations, a few of the self-styled “Talib” drew me aside to transmit a message of “thanks” to President Reagan. I said I represented WHO, not the U.S., in this. Still, they insisted. The message was to thank the president for the decision of the CIA (or someone within the CIA) to divert a substantial portion of the funds and shoulder-held Stinger missiles (to shoot down Soviet helicopters) away from the so-called “Freedom Fighters,” and into the hands of the Talib, who, being more fanatical, would fight more aggressively to expel the Soviet Russian occupiers from Afghanistan. (So much for “Charlie Wilson’s War” to back the “Freedom Fighters.” Did Congress or the president know anything about this diversion, or have any say in the matter? Certainly not.) We all know the end result: The “Taliban,” and not the “Freedom Fighters,” took over Kabul. It took years more of warfare, funds and human lives to drive them out.

Opium production in Afghanistan

The other thing the Talib mentioned was that the CIA was allegedly fostering the introduction of large scale agriculture and production of opium in Afghanistan, in an effort to further undermine the Soviet occupation by making opiates readily available at cheap prices to occupying Soviet military personnel. The Talib were not specific about how this was being done, but it seemed at the time that there was little opium production in Afghanistan, but such farming and production was sharply on the rise, as has now been fully documented. Afghanistan has become the world’s leading supplier. When you ask any GI why he or she is in Afghanistan today, the answer is two-fold: “to fight the Taliban and to fight opium.” So there seems to have been a tragic miscalculation with respect to both the Taliban and opium. The pink flower seems to have defeated the world’s greatest Superpower, and “We the People” have had no say in the matter.

Perhaps there are some lessons worth re-learning here, to better conduct U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, and to get U.S. foreign policy firmly back in civilian hands of elected representatives of the American people.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and general legal counsel of the World Health Organization.