Com­ment: the refusal by the Marines to destroy the crop should not be sur­pris­ing in and of itself. The impov­er­ished Afghan farm­ers depend on it for income and in the “bat­tle for hearts and minds,” that is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion. Con­sid­er­ing that other options are avail­able, such as pur­chas­ing the opium to make med­ical mor­phine, and that evi­dence exists that Pres­i­dent Karzai’s cab­i­net are involved with the trade, the NATO denial is to be taken with a grain of salt.

In addi­tion, the heroic work of Daniel Hop­sicker has indi­cated that ele­ments of U.S. and West­ern intel­li­gence con­tinue to profit from the drug trade.

“Rus­sia: U.S. Aid­ing Afghan Drug Trade”; Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­erty; 4/5/2010.

Rus­sia has accused the United States of “con­niv­ing” with Afghan drug pro­duc­ers by not destroy­ing opium crops as U.S. troops advance in Hel­mand Province, one of the major opium grow­ing regions.

The alle­ga­tion, which came in a state­ment from the Russ­ian For­eign Min­istry, was the sec­ond time this week that Moscow has crit­i­cized the West over the opium issue. NATO rejected the charge and said Rus­sia could help by pro­vid­ing more troops to com­bat the insurgency.

U.S. Marines in Hel­mand Province have told vil­lagers that they will not destroy this year’s crops. In the Tal­iban strong­hold of Mar­jah, which was cap­tured by U.S. troops last month, the U.S. offered to pay poppy farm­ers to destroy their own crops and pro­vide seed for them to plant other crops next year.

Afghanistan pro­duces over 90 per­cent of the world’s opium.