Afghanistan: When counternarcotics undermines counterterrorism

Washington Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 55-72

  Felbab Brown, Vanda ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27944473323     PISSN: 0163660X     EISSN: 15309177     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/0163660054798735     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. Ashraf Ghani, "Where Democracy's Greatest Enemy Is Flower," New York Times, December 11, 2004, p. 19;
2. Carlotta Gall, "Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Levels, U.N. Says," New York Times, November 19, 2004, p. 3.
3. John Lancaster, "Karzai Vows to Combat Flourishing Afghan Opium Trade," Boston Globe, December 10, 2004.
4. Thom Shanker, "Pentagon Sees Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan," New York Times, March 25, 2005, p. 1.
5. Scott B. MacDonald, "Afghanistan," in International Handbook on Drug Control, eds. Scott B. MacDonald and Bruce Zagaris (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), pp. 315-324.
6. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 117-127.
7. "Merging Wars: Afghanistan, Drugs and Terrorism," Drugs and Conflict Debate Paper, no. 3 (November 2001), http://www.tni.org/reports/drugs/debate3.htm;
8. "Heroin," Jane's Intelligence Review, June 1, 1998, p. 5;
9. Barnett R. Rubin, "The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan," World Development 28, no. 10 (2000): 1789-1803.
10. The estimated overall profits from the opium economy in 2003 were $2.3 billion, while Afghanistan's estimated GDP for 2002 was estimated at $4.4 billion. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Government of Afghanistan, "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2003," October 2003, http://www.unodc.org:80/pdf/afg /afghanistan_opium_survey_2003.pdf;
11. UNODC, "2004 World Drug Report: Vol. 2: Statistics," 2004, p. 206, http://www.unodc.org:80/pdf/WDR_2004/volume_2.pdf. In 2004 the export value of raw opium was $2.8 billion while Afghanistan's licit GDP in 2003 was an estimated $4.6 billion. Larry Goodson, "Afghanistan in 2004: Electoral Progress and Opium Boom," Asian Survey 45, no. 1 (January/February 2005): 93.
12. UNODC and the Government of Afghanistan, "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004," November 2004, http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afghanistan_opium_survey_2004.pdf.
13. David Mansfield "What Is Driving Opium Poppy Cultivation? Decision-Making Amongst Poppy Cultivators in Afghanistan in the 2003/4 Growing Season" (paper prepared for the UNODC/Office of National Drug Control Policy Second Technical Conference on Drug Control Research, July 19-21, 2004).
14. UNODC, "2004 World Drug Report: Vol. 2: Statistics," p. 206.
15. Barnett R. Rubin, "Road to Ruin: Afghanistan's Booming Opium Industry" (paper for the Center for American Progress and the Center on International Cooperation, October 7, 2004, http://www.cic.nyu.edu/pdf/RoadtoRuin.pdf).
16. See Samina Ahmed, "Warlords, Drugs, and Democracy," World Today 60, no. 5 (May 2004): 15-17.
17. Ikramul Haq, "Pak-Afghan Drug Trade in Historical Perspective," Asian Survey 36, no. 10 (October 1996): 945-963.
18. For economic analyses of the negative effects of the illicit drug economy on the over-all economy, see Mauricio Reina, "Drug Trafficking and the National Economy," in Violence in Colombia 1990-2000: Waging War and Negotiating Peace, eds. Charles Berquist, Ricardo Peñaranda, and Gonzalo Sánchez G. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources Imprint, 2001);
19. Francisco E. Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003).
20. Amy Waldman, "Afghan Route to Prosperity: Grow Poppies," New York Times, April 4, 2004, p. 5.
21. Jim Lobe, "Afghanistan: Concerns Grow Over Taliban Resurgence, Opium," Global Information Network, January 29, 2004, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=533932931&sid=8&Fmt= 3&clientId=5482&RQT=309&VName=PQD
22. See, for example, Gabriela Tarazona-Sevillano with John B. Reuter, Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of Narcoterrorism (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 1990);
23. Angel Rabasa and Peter Chalk, Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001).
24. Tim McGirk, "Terrorism's Harvest," Time, August 9, 2004, p. 41 (quoting Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan government's Counternarcotics Directorate).
25. Ibid.
26. Julia Preston,."Afghan Arrested in New York Said to Be a Heroin King," New York Times, April 26, 2005, p. 10.
27. See Peter Reuter and Edwin M. Truman, Chasing Dirty Money (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 2004).
28. U.S. Department of Treasury, "2002 National Money Laundering Strategy," July 2002, p. 12, http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/publications/ml2002.pdf.
29. T McGirk, "Terrorism's Harvest."
30. U.S. Department of Treasury, "2003 National Money Laundering Strategy," 2003, p. 57, fn. 50, http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/publications/ml2003.pdf.
31. Gregory L. Vistica and Douglas Farah, "Syria Seizes Six Arab Couriers, $23 Million," Washington Post, December 20, 2003, p. 16.
32. For a more detailed analysis of anti-money laundering efforts and Al Qaeda, see P Reuter and EM Truman, Chasing Dirty Money, pp. 143-144, 146-147.
33. Unnamed U.S. and British officials, interviews with author, summer and fall of 2004. See Eric Schmitt, "U.S. to Add Forces in Horn of Africa," New York Times, October 30, 2002, p. 16.
34. David S. Cloud and Carlotta Gall, "U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight," New York Times, May 22, 2005, p. 1.
35. Thom Shanker, "Pentagon Sees Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan," New York Times, March 25, 2005, p. 1.
36. D Mansfield, "What Is Driving Opium Poppy Cultivation?"
37. Cloud and Gall, "U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight."
38. Nat Ives, "Karzai Plans to Destroy Poppy Fields in Two Years," New York Times, December 13, 2004, p. 9.
39. Unnamed U.S. and British officials, interviews with author, summer and fall of 2004. See Peter Oborne and Lucy Morgan Edwards, "A Victory for Drug-Pushers," Spectator, May 31, 2003, pp. 26-30;
40. John F. Burns, "Afghan Warlords Squeeze Profits From the War on Drugs, Critics Say," New York Times, May 5, 2002, p. 22.
41. Quoted in Anne Barnard and Farah Stockman, "U.S. Weighs Role in Heroin War in Afghanistan," Boston Globe, October 20, 2004.
42. Stephen Graham, "Afghans Mull Amnesty for Drug Traffickers," Boston Globe, January 10, 2005.
43. D. Mansfield, "What Is Driving Opium Poppy Cultivation?"
44. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, "Drugs and War Destabilize Thai-Myanmar Border Region," Jane's Intelligence Review, April 1, 2002, http://www.pa-chouvy.org/JIR1.htm.
45. Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan, and Philip Wilkinson, "Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan," AREU Briefing Paper, June 2004, http://www.cmi.no/afghanistan/themes/docs/ AREU-Brief-2004-June-security.pdf