DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./E.U./AFGHANISTAN: DON'T SPRAY THOSE POPPIES, JUST GIVE THEM MONEY IN THE HOPES IT WILL WEAN JIHADISTS OFF THE OPIUM TRADE

US and allies split on Afghan poppy spraying
By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo

A US proposal to begin widespread aerial spraying of opium poppies in Afghanistan came under fire at a donor conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, highlighting a split between the US and its allies over drugs and security policy in the country.

William Byrd, a World Bank economist and adviser on Afghanistan, told a press conference: “International experience suggests [spraying is] not sustainable, either politically or economically.” The bank and the UK government are instead seeking support for a broad package of economic measures to wean Afghanistan off the opium trade, the country’s biggest industry and source of more than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin, says the United Nations.

The US has been frustrated by a surge in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan – output grew 17 per cent last year – and has been urging allies to agree to an aerial eradication programme similar to the one it sponsors in Colombia. A smaller ground-based eradication programme has done little to dent the drugs trade.

Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, has so far refused to sanction spraying on the grounds it could turn poor farmers against his fragile government. European members of the Nato-led coalition in Afghanistan have also resisted the plan, straining further an alliance stretched by arguments over funding and troop contributions.

“The US is basically a minority of one,” a person involved in the debate said. Even so, Washington has continued to put “huge pressure” on Mr Karzai to accept it, according to another person familiar with the matter.

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1) US and allies split on Afghan poppy spraying