AFGHANISTAN OPIUM TRADE

I have touched on this subject before, but the recent media coverage showing how the Opium Poppy crop has now reached its highest level ever demonstrates how Blair has failed here, as everywhere else. It is no good Keith Halliwell, and others, saying that the local population in the Poppy growing states have to be given an alternative crop to grow and that that is the only way to combat the problem. It is not.

Of course the carrot is important, but in the meantime too many in Britain and elsewhere succumbing to this particular nasty drug addiction. Too many die, and in their quest for supplies of the drug, too much crime is being committed. All of this is attributable to Blair. The buck stops with him. It is not in the interest of the local War Lords to stop this trade. They earn well out of it. Money talks, bullshit walks.

So - what can be done. Actually very little. Yes, the US approach of eradicating the fields has to be speeded up, and it could be, were the will there. How they must now regret having given Blair this role, oh yes, another role in which he has failed. This word failure crops up again and again when speaking of the man.

What little can be achieved is in the import of the drug into this country and prosecution of the drug barons here. But then, they have a human right surely to peddle drugs.