units that actually have to go out in
the rugged countryside of Afghani-
stan to deal with these organizations.
I’ve seen enthusiasm, and I’ve seen an
understanding of what this problem
means to Afghanistan’s future among
the Afghan cops we help train.”
“In the war against militant Islam
and terrorism, our greatest asset is
the Afghans. They want us there,”
says Thomas E. Guittierre, director
of the Center for Afghan Studies at
the University of Nebraska. When
Guittierre fi rst traveled to Afghani-
stan in the 1960s, opium poppies
weren’t even on the list of Afghani-
stan’s agricultural products. “One
would never fi nd fi elds of opium
poppies growing like one does “The Afghans exported pomegran-
today,” he says, comparing the sight ates and pistachios and walnuts
of poppies in bloom to the extensive and almonds and lots of grapes and
fi elds of corn and wheat stretch- raisins. Now the opium poppy is the
ing across the plains of Nebraska. primary agricultural export.”
The seeds of Afghanistan’s har-
vest of drugs and despair were sown
in the 1970s, when the power of the
country’s central government was
rapidly eroding. “Amid charges
of corruption and malfeasance
against the royal family and poor
economic conditions created by
the severe 1971-72 drought, former
Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud
seized power in a military coup on
July 17, 1973,” reports the U.S. De-
partment of State’s Bureau of South
and Central Asian Affairs.
Daoud abolished the monarchy,
repealed the 1964 constitution, and
declared Afghanistan a republic with NATO’s current commander
himself as its prime minister. in Afghanistan, Gen. David D.
A second coup in 1978 ushered McKiernan, USA, left, shakes hands
in a pro-Soviet government and ac- with Afghanistan’s President Hamid
celerated the unraveling of the coun- Karzai June 3, 2008 (above). Ser-
try’s progressive reforms, seriously vicemembers enjoy lunch with local
limiting the reach of the central allies in the Ghanzi province (top).
A representative of the U.S. De- government. When the Soviet Union
partment of Agriculture assesses an invaded Afghanistan in the fi nal “The coup and then the Soviet
irrigation canal with village elders. weeks of 1979 and subsequently oc- invasion really diminished the state
(left) A farmer walks through his cupied the country, the central gov- structure of Afghanistan tremen-
fields. Though he once harvested ernment’s last vestiges of credibility dously,” Guittierre says. “Afghanistan
poppies, he now cultivates onions. were swept aside. proceeded on [CONTINUES ON PAGE 69]
PHOTOS: ABOVE AND TOP, MUSADEQ SADEQ/AP; LEFT, M AY 2 0 0 9 M I L I T A R Y O F F I C E R 5 3
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE; FAR LEFT, CHARLES REX
ARBOGAST/AP
MMay_Harvest.indd
53ay_Harvest.indd 53 44/9/09 6:13:17 PM/9/09 6:13:17 PM
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