Farm Aid, Afghan Style

If four more years of Bush seems intolerable cheer up; because of the Bush administration's failure in Afghanistan you should be able to stay stoned the entire four years. And while the right wingers scream about the corruption in the oil for food program sending money the terrorist's way, Afghanistan in proving to be an al Queda piggybank. U.N. Reports Boom in Opium Production in Afghanistan.

(AP) -- Heroin production is booming in Afghanistan, undermining democracy and putting money in the coffers of terrorists, according to a U.N. report Thursday that called on U.S. and NATO-led forces get more involved in fighting drug traffickers.

``Fighting narcotics is equivalent to fighting terrorism,'' said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. ``It would be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it from the Taliban and al-Qaida.''

But at least Afghanistan has a booming economy.

.... the U.N. agency said cultivation of opium -- the raw material for heroin -- has spread to all of Afghanistan, with 10 percent of the population benefiting from the trade.

This year's cultivation was up by nearly two-thirds, it found. Bad weather and disease kept production from setting a record, although Afghanistan still accounted for 87 percent of the world supply, up from 76 percent in 2003.


Opium is the ``main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond among previously quarrelsome peoples,'' the report said. It valued the trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60 percent of Afghanistan's 2003 gross domestic product.