Afghanistan is good news for drug dealers. A recentreport in the Associated Press says that opiumproduction there is at a record high, up by more than40 per cent from last year.

Afghanistan producesabout 90 per cent of the world’s heroin courtesyof Uncle Sam and vassal countries like Canada andBritain. This despite hundreds of millions ofdollars being poured into counter narcotics. Nodoubt much of that anti-drug money is going into onehand of the same people in various governments thatare taking a cut from the opium trade with the other.

Opium in Afghanistan is a big problem. Opium toAfghans is like timber to Canada’s forest communitiesand salmon to its fishing fleet. The more thatoutsiders try to suppress it the more Afghans aredriven into revolt against the foreign presence.Quite possibly the road to any kind of success forthe occupying powers in Afghanistan is one that leadsto facilitating the drug trade.

Of course, beinginvolved in dealing drugs is nothing new for U.S.government agencies which have been fundingoperations out of sight of Congress this way fordecades. Somehow, though, I don’t think that this isexactly the kind of business that Canadians want tosee their country tangled up in. Perhaps they shouldthink about it a bit before signing onto Mr. Harper’sprogram for this country, because Mr. Harper hasalready bought into it.

Ironically, the Taliban that Mr. Bush drove out ofpower when he so foolishly invaded the country hadsignificantly curtailed opium production. Now, ofcourse, they are into producing because they need thecash to carry out their insurgency against theinvading powers. And the drug lords that were oncetheir enemies are now their allies.

It is a stinkingmess and indications are that it will get worsebefore it gets better, if it ever does getbetter.

Canadian deaths in Afghanistan have reached 32 with more to come. As the involvementincreases so will the casualties. Canadians need toseriously ask themselves if the deaths and maimingare worth it and what price they want to pay for arole in Mr. Bush and company’s lethal pipe dream.Perhaps they need to ask Mr. Harper to tell them howmany deaths are an acceptable price to pay for theeffort, tell them what number of lost lives has tobe reached before he is not willing to throw awayany more.

Down in the States a revolt may be brewing in theirforces as troops are being sent back to Iraq andAfghanistan time and time again. Just recently, theMarines announced that they were forcing thousandsback to duty from the reserves, and the Army andNational Guard have been holding people inindefinitely past their enlistments. This is a suresign that volunteers are getting hard to come by andthat public support for the war exists more infantasy than reality.

Not long ago, a Lieutenant atFort Lewis refused orders to deploy to Iraq on thebasis that the war was illegal. His court martialhas the potential to raise some interestingquestions if it is not tightly controlled.

Meanwhile, down in California, the state Senateunanimously passed a bill establishing an outreachprogram to screen veterans for exposure to depleteduranium, otherwise known as DU. Depleted Uranium isU238, not quite as dangerous as the U235 used to makebombs and fuel rods, but dangerous nonetheless.

Since 1991, the U.S. has been using DU in bombs, shellsand other ordnance. It atomizes on impact, givingoff a lethal radioactive dust that not onlycontaminates the area around it, but is carried onthe wind. It is reported that after the 2003 shock-and-awe campaign by the Americans in Iraq, a toxicUranium gas cloud was detected over Europe.

Although the official line is that it is not terriblyharmful there is a mountain of reports and studieslinking it to such things as Gulf War Syndrome andthe unusual occurrences of cancer among thoseexposed to it. There is also the precedent of AgentOrange whose long term effects on those exposed weredenied for years after its use in Vietnam. Finally,it was admitted that the effects were real andcompensation to veterans made available. It isreasonable to suspect that the same story may holdtrue eventually for DU.

Canadians should be concerned because DU is an issuefor troops in Afghanistan and anywhere else theAmericans appear. Parliament should be asking thePrime Minister and his cabinet members what steps arebeing taken to monitor the troops for DU exposure, toprevent that exposure, and to provide propertreatment and compensation to those who developproblems from being exposed. Since DU is in realitya weapon of mass destruction, maybe Canadians shouldbe asking why their troops would be anywhere nearthis stuff at all.