Afghan President Hamid Karzai is protecting allies involved in the opium trade - including reportedly his own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai (a prominent official in Kandahar) - and they benefit as much from the trafficking as the Taliban - if not more - says this interesting report in the New York Times Magazine from Thomas Schweich, a former top U.S. narcotics official in the country. What are the U.S. and other NATO countries (hello, Canada!) doing about it? Read the story to find out. (You can probably guess the answer! Hint: it rhymes with "shmothing.") In the wake of the allegations, David Emerson, foreign affairs minister of Canada, which is presently in command of the Afghan South region (home to most of the country's opium cultivation), dances a pretty dance of denials and obfuscations. (See a story on that here.)
TAGS: Afghanistan, investigations, Canada, drugs
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