The UNODC put out its 2007 drug report. The conclusions are puzzling: significant and positive changes in the world drug scene. Helmand? Not so much. In fact, that one, single province of Afghanistan is poised to become the world’s single largest supplier of any sort of drug—and more opium is being processed in-country. Worse still, more is flowing through Iran than anywhere else, suggesting a drug lord connection to the Iranian weapons mysteriously cropping up in Taliban battlefields. If the drug lords are operating along the border, that would explain the convoys, the weaponry, and the seeming lack of official involvement.
So the drug-and-corruption side of Afghanistan is deeply unfortunate, and seems to be getting worse. What of the rest of it? Canadian National Post illustrator Richard Johnson is in Kandahar, and he’s posting a series of illustrations of what he sees on a day-to-day basis. They’re beautiful, and haunting—especially this little boy, whom Johnson said, “was very small but looked old. He listened intently.” I’ve seen that of children in other conflict zones, too: warfare ages prematurely. And this is a real tragedy, as it appears the Taliban has resorted to tricking children into donning suicide belts—adding yet another layer of evil to what they do.
There is no grander point I’m trying to convey here. But the comparing the many faces of Afghanistan seems useful somehow.
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