http://www.etaiwannews.com/Asia/2004...1099446698.htm

The United States is opening a second front in Afghanistan, moving from a war on terror to a war on drugs that it hopes will lead to indictments of Afghan heroin millionaires in U.S. courts within months, diplomats say.

After three years of letting Afghanistan's narco-economy go from strength to strength, Washington has heeded warnings that the Islamic nation's transition to democracy will go badly wrong if drug money is allowed to take over the system.

While 18,000 U.S.-led troops chased remnants of the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida, drug lords flourished as Washington only gave a mandate to its forces to chase militants, not traffickers. Many of these traffickers control militias that were useful allies in the war against the Taliban.

Afghanistan's opium economy is estimated to have earned US$2.8 billion this year, up US$500 million from 2003 and equivalent to close to half the impoverished, war-ravaged country's annual gross domestic product, according to drug enforcement agents.Officials say the speed with which Afghan traffickers have ramped up output is remarkable. There was a 64 percent increase in the area that was harvested this year and opium production is moving back toward the 1999 peak of over 4,500 tons.

Well if they dont end the stupid failed drug war they wil be chasing their tails .

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"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
(from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "the Younger," circa 4 BC-65 AD