subject: Russia is manipulating with anti-drug rhetoric to get the US and NATO bogged down in Afghanistan [print this page] Russia is manipulating with anti-drug rhetoric to get the US and NATO bogged down in Afghanistan
by Peter Richardson
On October 28 Russia and the United States conducted their first joint counternarcotics operation in Afghanistan. As reported, 4 drug laboratories were destroyed and more than a ton of heroin and morphine worth $56 million were seized in the Shinwar district of the eastern province of Nangarhar.
Although the US and Russian officials said that Afghan forces were involved in the raid, President Hamid Karzai was outraged, stating that he was not previously informed of the operation and it was a clear violation of Afghan sovereignty. Mr. Karzai said, "While Afghanistan remains committed to its joint efforts with the international community against narcotics, it also makes it clear that no organization or institution shall have the right to carry out such a military operation without prior authorization and consent of the government of Afghanistan". "Such unilateral operations are a clear violation of Afghan sovereignty as well as international law, and any repetition will be met by the required reaction from our side," he added.
An unexpected furious reaction from President Karzai led to an urgent phone call from his Russian counterpart, who tried to give some explanations to ease the situation. The content of their conversation hasn't been disclosed. While Medvedev's press-team stated that both presidents agreed upon further cooperation in fighting drugs, the representative of Russian antidrug agency in Kabul tried to assure that his country's participation in the operation was minimal. Russians "simply acted as advisers, according to an agreement between our two countries permitting the presence of Russian advisers during a drug raid," he said.
Observers believe the operation in Shinwar is a political move from the Washington to convince deeply suspicious Moscow in United States' firm stance against drug industry in Afghanistan. Russian officials state that Afghan poppy cultivation has brought to a devastating drug problem in Russia. The UN estimates show Russia has become the world's largest consumer market for Afghan heroin with several millions of people officially registered as drug addicts. More than 30,000 young Russians die every year from drug use. Afghan heroin is believed to be one of the main reasons behind the rocketing numbers of drug addicts and drug related diseases (mostly HIV and tuberculosis) in the country. The problem has become a serious national security concern.
The US and NATO have long been turning down Russia's call to launch "war on drugs" by destroying Afghan poppy cultivation. Obama administration believes that poppy eradication will deprive farmers of their livelihood and potentially turn them toward the insurgency. The US policymakers state that for Russia treatment and law enforcement measures are most effective ways to cut drug use than "war on drugs".
Russia has launched a large-scale propaganda campaign blaming the US and NATO for "inadequate counternarcotics policies" in Afghanistan. Local analysts claim that like China suffered forced opium trade by foreign countries in 19th century today Russia has become a victim of the covert US strategy of keeping Russia weak by flooding the country with cheap Afghan drugs.
Another propagandistic idea for popular consumption is that "the US military and intelligence are heavily involved in Afghan drug trade to sustain costly antiterrorist operations worldwide". Ungrounded speculations and conspiracy theories like in Ridley Scott's recent crime drama "American gangster" starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe that describes how hundreds of kilos of heroin were smuggled in coffins of dead American soldiers during the Vietnam war seem to be the best evidence for Russian propaganda machine to feed the public with false assumptions.
While there is no evidence of drug smuggling by American soldiers in Afghanistan, the involvement of Russian military in drug trafficking is well known. Several years ago the media had extensively wrote about and shown the pictures of Russian transport plane loaded with a ton of Afghan heroin ready to take off from Dushanbe airport in Tajikistan before landing in one of Moscow's military aerodromes.
Reliable sources indicate that Russian secret services also used the aviation companies of Viktor Bout, an international criminal widely known as "arms baron", to transport drugs out of Afghanistan in exchange for arms to warring groups in Afghanistan. This might partly be a reason of Russia's nervous efforts to stop his extradition from Thailand to the United States.
Russian analysts associated with hard-line military circles insist that Russian border troops should resume the patrolling of Tajik-Afghan border to stop the flow of the Afghan drugs into Russia. Some of them call for close cooperation of special services with drug mafia to redirect the heroin flow from Russian cities to Europe. "That would be a good retaliation to NATO for rebuffing Russian demands to eradicate poppy plantations in Afghanistan", they argue.
Western diplomats with close knowledge of Russia believe that persistent Russian calls to fight Afghan drugs have nothing to do with the real solution to the problem. With a high corruption and low morale among law enforcement forces intercepting only 3 to 5% of illegal drugs infiltrating into the country, Russia can hardly cope with this menace. But Moscow is eager to get geopolitical concessions from the United States by using the rhetoric of Afghan drug threat and NATO's "cold-heartedness" to the problem. Russia is already utilizing its conditional support to NATO's military operations in Afghanistan, demonstrated at best in allowing the use of Russian territory for supply of coalition forces, as a "play card" for trade-offs with the United States to accept the ex-Soviet republics as Russia's sphere of influence.
There is a little doubt that Russia's demands from the US and NATO for tougher actions against opium cultivation in Afghanistan is part of that game. The more coalition forces get involved in "war on drugs", the more they will be bogged down in Afghan quagmire. That will eventually bring to increased reliance of the US and NATO on Russian supply routes. The more reliance on Russia, in its turn, means the more concessions to its imperial ambitions.
