Lets quote the text, comment is not needed this information speaks for itself. It is completely clear that this American government simply cannot deat with the problems in question and in the long run make things much more worse. Quoting:

US helicopters in secret mission to spray Afghanistan's opium fields

Luke Harding in Zafar Khel
Monday June 9, 2003

Mohammed Hussain was sitting on the roof of his house listening to the radio when he heard the sound of helicopters flying low over his village. He thought nothing of it.

The American military frequently swooped over the area, and had spent hours hunting in the nearby snowy mountains for Taliban suspects.

It was only when he inspected his opium field the next morning that Mr Hussain noticed something was wrong. 

"The previous evening, my poppy plants were green and healthy. By the next morning they had completely dried out," he said. "I've never seen a disease like it. 

"They were circling above us. They woke the children up. It was about nine or 10 o'clock at night. The helicopters had their lights turned off. They were definitely Americans." 

Mr Hussain lives in Zafar Khel, a village of high, mud-walled houses and shady mulberry trees in eastern Afghanistan. The village is two hours' drive from the sweeping Tora Bora mountains, where Osama bin Laden disappeared. 

It is here, against a landscape of dusty boulder-strewn plains and lush oasis villages scented with orange blossom, that much of Afghanistan's opium is grown. 

Mr Hussain and other locals are convinced that the American military secretly tried to wipe out their crop two months ago. The farmers believe that, operating in darkness, US forces sprayed their fields with herbicide. 

The US has been heavily involved in funding and carrying out crop-fumigation programmes in countries in South America, but the agreement of the governments concerned has been integral to the process. 

Crop spraying in Afghanistan would be a different matter - effectively an attempt at bio-sabotage in a country where the approval of the population's representatives had not been sought.

Flourishing

"I still managed to salvage a third of my crop," Mr Hussain said, showing off a kilogram of black, gooey opium wrapped in leaves and tied up with twine. "I'm going to save this to pay for my wedding," he said. 

Western diplomats have dismissed the allegation of sabotage as "rubbish". Not, though, that any such tactic appears to have made much difference. Eighteen months after US-led forces evicted the Taliban, Afghanistan has just enjoyed another bumper heroin crop. 

The Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, successfully banned opium production in virtually all of the country. But since Afghanistan's pro-American leader, Hamid Karzai, took over, poppy cultivation has flourished again. 

Last year Afghanistan retook its place as the world's leading producer of heroin, supplanting Burma. The amount of land used to cultivate opium poppies shot up from 1,685 hectares (4,164 acres) in 2001 under the Taliban to 30,750 hectares (75,985 acres). 

International efforts led by Britain to reduce poppy cultivation in Afghanistan this year have failed spectacularly. In Kabul, senior Afghan officials are now grumbling that Britain has no anti-drugs plan. Meanwhile, 90% of the heroin that reaches Britain comes from Afghanistan. 

Wiping out Afghanistan's opium crop is clearly going to be an epic task. Driving across Afghanistan's eastern opium heartland last week, the Guardian discovered dozens of poppy fields that had just been harvested. It wasn't difficult to find an opium farmer, since the term could be applied to just about everybody. 

Sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree, Abdul Ahad yesterday showed off the field where he had grown opium, close to the main road in the dusty, cricket-loving village of Kochiano. He had just sold 15kg of heroin in the local bazaar. Each kilogram sells for 20,000 Pakistani rupees - £235. After expenses, he had made £3,000 profit - a fortune in a country where the average monthly wage is about £12. 

Mr Ahad said he was unimpressed by western efforts to eliminate Afghanistan's poppy crop. "The Americans destroyed my country," he said. "I hope Bush and Blair sink," he added, while calling for a tray of green tea for his British guests. 

The entire village had joined in collecting the opium resin last month, he said. 

"It's very hot during harvest time, but I like it," said Ahmed Ulla, eight. "I collect the resin in the morning and go to school in the afternoon." 

President Karzai, who met Tony Blair in London last week, has called for poppy production to stop. But his local officials fail to inspire the same dread that the Taliban did, and his interim government in Kabul is virtually bankrupt. Earlier this year government officials carrying Kalashnikovs arrived in Kochiano with six tractors and ploughed up several opium fields. One belonged to Zarma Jan, a 35-year-old farmer. Mr Jan waited until they had gone, and then promptly replanted his jerib - an Afghan term for a fifth of a hectare - with opium. 

"They destroyed my field at 10am. At 11 or 12, we started to put the poppy seeds back in again. It took us 10 or 15 minutes," he said. 

Asked why they grow opium, Afghan farmers give a half-truthful reply: they don't have any alternative. 

"I know that what I'm doing is illegal," Mr Jan said. "But we are poor. There are no jobs. There is nothing for us. I have five children and a wife to feed." 

Elsewhere in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, which adjoins Pakistan, there have been angry clashes between "campaign- wallahs", as the anti-drugs officials are known, and farmers. There have been injuries on both sides. 

When officials turned up in Zafar Khel, the villagers pelted them with stones. They eventually withdrew without destroying the opium crop, but taking four men whom they put in the cells in nearby Jalalabad for several days. 

In other provinces farmers have simply bribed officials to go away. Anti-drugs experts concede that many Afghans are desperately poor and have little choice but to grow opium to survive. Many farmers borrow money against their future crop, and soon find themselves in debt. 

Yesterday one western diplomat in Kabul responsible for drug strategy admitted that getting rid of opium was going to be an uphill struggle. 

The crop has flourished in large parts of Afghanistan since the time of Alexander the Great. Unlike wheat, it requires little water and is ideally suited to arid valleys and unreliable rivers. 

"People want instant results," the diplomat said. "There is no quick fix. This is a long-term problem." 

Speaking in Kabul last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, William Taylor, conceded that the Taliban had wiped out opium, but added: "There is a difference between freedom and totalitarianism. We think the advantages of freedom clearly outweigh the disadvantages." 

Back in Zafar Khel, as we prepared to leave, an old man beckoned us over. "Opium is destroying this village," he said. "The sooner the Americans get rid of it, the better."