How are they all related? Let's see...we invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban and their criminal enterprise al-Qaida. Okay. We toss out the Taliban and their friends and set up a puppet government, whom we don't really fund or protect, then we go off Talib hunting in the hinterlands of the Hindu Kush, getting our remaining Afghan friends and allies wasted as we go...follow me so far? Let's see if this article from the AsiaTimes makes it a bit clearer. Oh, and as for Opium, well we have basically turned over record crops to the warlords (remember them?) to sell and ship out ... one has to wonder where that ends up.

It is rather well known that al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants have been avoiding the US dragnet by hiding in Balochistan and in Pakistan's tribal agencies (FATA) bordering Afghanistan. The Balochi Shi'ites, most of whom immigrated ages ago from the Hazara region in central Afghanistan, have been providing the Americans and the Pakistanis intelligence about al-Qaeda and Taliban militia in the province. That led to a number of arrests of al-Qaeda operatives. But while their intelligence was accepted, neither the Americans nor the Pakistanis saw it necessary to provide the Shi'ite sources with adequate security.

It is certain that more killings will ensue, likely precipitating full-fledged sectarian violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis in already-troubled Pakistan that may, sooner or later, embroil the keeper of the Shi'ite faith - Iran. Indeed, some in Washington, particularly the neo-conservatives thumping to "take out" the Iran regime, would like to get Tehran involved in the brawl. This crude layer of the American political mainstream hopes that such action by Tehran would provide the "smoking gun" to justify a regime change in Iran to the hapless American populace.

To repeat the ABCs of this situation: the key players in Pakistan on whom the US is relying to eradicate Taliban extremists are the very individuals who created the Taliban. By supporting President General Pervez Musharraf in his power grab in 1999 in a coup under the pretext of replacing a "fundamentalist" with a "moderate", Washington did manage to buy off a small section of the Pakistani army personnel. These switched from being pro-Taliban to become pro-American. Needless to say, Musharraf is one of them. Since then, Washington has dumped money on Pakistan, looked away from its enriched uranium-for-missile deal with North Korea, and suppressed information about the on-going support to the Taliban and al-Qaeda militia by a section of the Pakistan army and the ISI.
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More recently, when Musharraf was touring abroad for 18 days in late June appeasing Western leaders, Pakistan's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Mohammad Aziz Khan, identified America as Pakistan's number one enemy.
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Nobody knows better than Karzai the problem of being a puppet of Washington. Karzai, who is referred to as the "mayor of Kabul" by cynical Kabul residents, was wholly at the mercy of the Americans from the time he was made leader. The US provides him an inner core of bodyguards, and he remains as distant from the Afghans as he was the day he was sworn in. Meanwhile, Americans are out there "fixing" things.

One of the things that the Americans "fixed" is drug production. During the Taliban days, opium production had reached a peak of 5,000-plus tons. In 2001, with the warehouses filled to the ceiling with raw opium, the Taliban wanted to show how "good" they were, and stopped poppy cultivation in the territories they controlled - about 95 percent of the country. The opium price soared, and the Taliban regime and its Pakistani benefactors made huge profits. At the same time, the Taliban, citing their efforts to end the venal drug trade, sought recognition as the legitimate Afghan government.
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One of these short-cuts involved a deal with the warlords. The deal was to allow the warlords to grow poppy, so that these warlords could buy arms and recruit militia to strengthen their ranks. In return, they would not only provide the Americans with the intelligence on where the al-Qaeda and the Taliban are hiding, but would also provide the Americans with fighters.

What came of this approach? The first thing that happened is that poppy fields and the poppy growers took over Afghanistan. In the year 2002, about 3,750 tons of opium was harvested. In cold cash, this translates conservatively into anything between US$5-6 billion for the warlords.

The results of more brilliant foreign policy decisions from the 1600 Crew and President Bring-'em-on.