Jerusalem World News

On December 24, 1979, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. It became an imbroglio for the Superpower that was driven back within its own borders in ignominious defeat. The Russians were so determined not to acknowledge their defeat that they christened the plane carrying the coffins of their young soldiers back to mother Russia the Black Tulip. It was aptly named, as black signifies death, and the tulip is the flower of youth.   

President Obama’s plan to increase the troop levels in Afghanistan to approximately 100,000 can only be compared to the old Soviet Union’s dilemma when they faced defeat in that hostile region. Afghanistan is even more deadly with the incursion of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, both aggressively antagonistic to the United States. What will happen if President Obama abandons Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaeda? How will it impact the region?

One of the trades that greatly impact the region is the export of opium. For half a decade, more than 90 percent of the world’s source of illegal opium and heroin has sprung from the fields of Afghanistan. Today, the war in Afghanistan has opened the floodgates for the production and distribution of heroin. Those who are flourishing in that war-torn country are the fanatical insurgents and the smugglers who traffic in heroin.

It can be a lucrative business for those at the top of the pyramid. The going rate for a kilo of heroin in Afghanistan is approximately $2,500. When transported across the border to Tajikistan, the same shipment can bring $5,000, and in Moscow, $100,000. That’s quite an incentive to continue to find ways to grow poppies and produce heroin for the marketplace.

It has proven to be a boon for the Taliban whose leaders demand protection money for the drug shipments and the chemicals needed to refine the heroin for street sales. These “protectors” can earn upwards of $75 million yearly for their services.    

The question continues to resonate: “Why send additional troops into a situation where American soldiers become babysitters for drug lords?” Until the poppy fields are torched, it is suicide to send more American troops. Just who would they be defending? The poppy panderers? Can you imagine the U.S. government protecting drug dealers in America?

Another boon in the drug trade is the ability to purchase weapons whose trade can net the trader as much as $5,000 each month, great riches in a country where the median income is approximately $800 per year or about $77 per month. The weapon of choice is the Russian Kalashnikov which sells for about $400 on the black market. The highly-prized new version of the famed weapon, the Kalakov sells for $1,100. It is most desirable because it is smaller, and its bullets will pierce body armor, a plus among the Taliban and al-Qaeda who are targeting American troops.  

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the conference on Afghanistan in The Hague earlier this year stated that over 50 percent of the Taliban were “moderates.” I challenged her with a reminder that the Taliban were far from being moderate.

During the conference, several Afghan diplomats met privately with me at the Intercontinental Hotel. They assured me that Ms. Clinton was 100 percent wrong; I was 100 percent correct. It was sad that they could not say that directly to the Secretary of State.

How does one define a “moderate terrorist?” According to Clinton, those Taliban who abandoned the fanatical organization and became “moderate” Taliban would be granted permission to enter into any talks on the future of Afghanistan. President Obama should take a look back at Jimmy Carter’s “negotiations” with the fanatical Ayatollah Khomeini. What could he learn from Carter’s presidency regarding Afghanistan?

Mr. Carter destabilized the Middle East by not supporting America’s strongest Muslim ally in the region, the Shah of Iran. He approved the covert funding of Ayatollah Khomeini, making it possible for the Imam to birth radical Islam from his retreat outside Paris. Carter continued the destabilization of the region when he covertly funded the Muslim Brotherhood in their fight against the Soviets.

I am a Texan and a conservative Republican, but I was disturbed when President George Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq. I wrote a book, Beyond Iraq, The Next Move, because the solution seemed to me to be quite simple: Since we had controlled Iraqi airspace for ten years, I believed all we had to do was close the Syrian border to prevent Saddam Hussein from smuggling through Syria. Had we done that, we would have had him caged like a canary.

It appears that President Obama is making an even bigger mistake by sending our brave young men and women into harm’s way to fight an enemy he refuses to define as an enemy. He cannot say the words “radical Islam” or “terrorist.” He prefers to call them militants and insurgents.

This is the atmosphere into which we will send even more American troops; a no-win situation where men and women of the United States military are forced to protect the very people who by peddling their deadly opium and heroin across the ocean finance the war in Afghanistan. It is a war that cannot be won until the oxygen that fuels, feeds, and finances the fires of terrorism is shut off.

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Michael D. Evans, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, is the author of Atomic Iran, Countdown to Armageddon.