victory over drug lords still in distant future

• NATO will embark on the biggest mission in its history on Monday when it takes over security from the U.S.-led coalition in six southern provinces [of southern afghanistan], extending its authority to almost all of the country.
• British Lieutenant-General David Richards said he hoped to see improvements in the south within three to six months, which would allow the 26-nation alliance to proceed with the final phase of its deployment into the east by the end of the year.
• Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south.
• Richards told a news conference in Kabul that the violence was inextricably linked to drugs.
• "Essentially for the last four years some very brutal people have been developing their little fiefdoms down there and exporting a lot of opium to the rest of the world," he said.
• "That very evil trade is being threatened by the NATO expansion in the south. This is a very noble cause we're engaged in and we have to liberate the people from that scourge of those warlords." (NATO sets sights on Afghan drug barons, By Jeremy Laurence, July 29, 2006, KABUL, Reuters)

good news, indeed, but has anyone doubted the link between taliban in southern afghanistan (or hezbollah and bakaa valley) and drug trafficking? is there any reason we are only now turning to this issue? or that it is not the usa, nor "coalition" troops, but nato that is taking on this issue? couldn't be that we wasted time, money, good will, and troop and civilian casualties in iraq could it? but smuggling, of any sort, works best when it works with the existing government (helps eliminate your competitors, and, without high duties or barriers to trade, the smuggler wouldn't have a profit motive). look to see this latest nato-led move corrupted in, well, 3-to-6 months. there is too much money to be made in an area with too little money.