Who Exactly is Helping the Taliban?

Or, I Beg Your Pardon, Is That a Karzai Crony Poppy Garden? Who Exactly is Helping the Taliban? The Ungrateful and Corrupt Mr. Karzai…. “Ungrateful”—thy name is Karzai. Look up the word in Webster’s Dictionary and you see his picture. Recently the President of Afghanistan had the audacity to suggest that the United States is working secretly with the Taliban and against the interests of Afghanistan. Yep, the United States—the country which has spent billions building up their infrastructure, supporting his corrupt government so there is an alternative to the pipe wielding misogynist, cave-dwelling, religious zealots who want to return the country to the glorious seventh century. The United States—which has seen over two thousand of its best and bravest die on the battlefield only to be insulted by this corrupt weirdo who but for the grace of Allah and our sacrifice would be swinging from a Taliban rope. Who is this guy, really, to throw stones at anyone? In order to curb drug traffic and expedite prosecution of drug traffickers in the country, the United States has spent tens of millions of dollars and untold time and effort to establish Afghan drug courts. This is because the traditional judicial system in Afghanistan is too cumbersome, inefficient, and corrupt to handle these cases. Why is this important? Well, the bad guys who are shooting at our wonderful young men and women and blowing them up with IEDs are being financed in part by the opium trade. If we can persuade the farmers not to grow poppies, in favor of some other cash crop, and if we prosecute the big fish who are trafficking in opium and financing the bullets and IEDs that are killing our brave troops, then we might make some headway in our fight to establish a viable, democratic government over there and protect it against the Taliban. However, there seems to be one big hitch in this plan: the Afghan President himself. Yes, it seems that the President of Afghanistan is not only not on the same page as the United States, but is in fact working against us. How? Well, those bad guys who are trafficking in dope, [ii] financing the war—those whom we spent tens of millions on, to track down, prosecute, and convict in Afghan courts—have been pardoned by the hundreds. And by whom? Of course, the President of Afghanistan himself. It seems that his government is so corrupt that Karzai and the people running Karzai’s government have rather seedy friends, business associates and relatives who are working against the United States and financing the Taliban through the drug trade. Karzai (probably for financial gain or in any event to curry favor with his top supporters) lets the dirtbags go…the ones we spent millions to capture and convict. This, of course, begs the question: Whose side is Karzai on? With friends like him, who needs enemies? If he is willing to free bad people who are indirectly financing the war against the United States, all for political gain, then he is no friend of ours and his agenda is not ours. Put simply—what is the difference between Karzai and the Taliban? Ultimately, he is no less inimical to long term American interests than the Taliban. The only difference is, he is not shooting at us. He is just buying the bullets. [ii] The UN Office on Drugs and Crime Afghanistan Opium Survey, revealed that opium production remained strong, and that tens of millions of dollars are being funneled to the Taliban to finance the war against the United States. Previously secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also revealed that Karzai had pardoned hundreds of drug traffickers over the years, despite the U.S. efforts to stem the production of drugs in Afghanistan—the source of most of the world’s opium.