Opium Nation
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84 He gave the tribes land: Interviews with tribal elders, Herat, 2003.
FIVE: MEETING DARYA
91 dousing themselves with accelerant: Interview with officials at Ghoryan Hospital, Herat, 2003.
91 With three to six million addicts: A. William Samii, “Iran: Country’s Drug Problem Appears to Be Worsening,” Radio Free Europe, July 18, 2005, viewed online at www.rferl.org/content/article/1059991.html.
98 the 4.8 million children: United Nations Development Fund for Women, Women in Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2010, viewed online at www.unifem.org/afghanistan/media/pubs/factsheet/10/index.html.
100 between $25 million and $75 million: Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003, 508; and Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy, London: I.B. Taurus, 2009, 52.
100 teach Ghoryan farmers: Interviews with Ghoryan farmers, Herat, 2003.
100 encouraged unemployed young men: Interviews with Ghoryan couriers, Herat, 2003.
101 more than 3,000 sentenced to death: Antoine Blua, “Kabul Alarmed by Iran’s Executions of Afghan Prisoners,” Radio Free Europe, October 15, 2010, viewed online at www.rferl.org/content/Kabul_Alarmed_By_Irans_Executions_Of_Afghan_Prisoners/2013239.html.
101 Iranian law states: Iranian law on drug crimes on the Iran Justice Ministry Web site, viewed online at www.dadkhahi.net/law/Ghavanin/Ghavanin_Jazaee/gh_mobareze_ba_mavade_mokhader.htm.
103 The Taliban’s ban on opium production: Raphael F. Perl, “Taliban and the Drug Trade,” Congressional Research Service Report, October 5, 2001, 2, viewed online at fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/6210.pdf.
105 Afghan girls face forced marriages: United Nations Development Fund for Women, Women in Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2010, viewed online at www.unifem.org/afghanistan/media/pubs/factsheet/10/index.html.
SIX: A SMUGGLING TRADITION
115 opium debts for widows: Interviews with widows in debt in Ghoryan, Herat, 2003.
115 can read and write: United Nations Development Fund for Women, Women in Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2010, viewed online at www.unifem.org/afghanistan/media/pubs/factsheet/10/index.html.
EIGHT: TRAVELING ON THE BORDER OF DEATH
134 With a 40 percent unemployment rate: The World Factbook 2009, Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009, viewed online at www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html.
134 chain of the narcotics link: Interview with a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Kabul, 2005.
135 seized Iranian-made weapons: Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. Says Iranian Arms Seized in Afghanistan,” New York Times, April 18, 2007, viewed online www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/middleeast/18military.html.
135 weapons are disassembled and smuggled: Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, “Turning Afghan Heroin into Kalashnikovs,” Institute for War and Peace Reporting, July 8, 2008, viewed online at iwpr.net/report-news/turning-afghan-heroin-kalashnikovs; Matthew DuPee, “Iran’s 30-Year War on Drugs,” World Politics Review, February 10, 2010.
135 caught American private contractors: Gregor Salmon, Poppy: Life, Death, and Addiction Inside Afghanistan’s Opium Trade, Sydney: Random House Australia, 2009, 214–18.
135 with 50 percent of the drug smuggled: DuPee, “Iran’s 30-Year War.”
135 drug syndicates, or mafias: Interview with counternarcotics expert Matthew DuPee, Monterey, 2010.
136 DEA says the Quetta Alliance: Interviews with DEA agents, Kabul, 2005.
136 Nigerian drug trafficking organizations: Interview with DuPee, Monterey, 2010.
136 transferred from Afghanistan to the UAE: Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti, “Key Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Linked to C.I.A.,” New York Times, August, 25, 2010, viewed online at www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/asia/26kabul.html.
137 dry lips and dehydrated state: Salmon, Poppy, 215.
137 more than a three-hundred-kilometer: Interview with DuPee, Monterey, 2010.
140 Amanullah Khan: Reuters, “Fighting Resumes in North and West of Afghanistan,” October 4, 2002, viewed online at www.rawa.org/fight.htm.
141 more than 3,700 troops: DuPee, “Iran’s 30-Year War.”
141 Iran’s intelligence agencies dabbled: Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009, 138.
142 seized a thousand tons of opium: DuPee, “Iran’s 30-Year War.”
NINE: WHERE THE POPPIES BLOOM
151 the Taliban allowed women to work: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, The Role of Women in Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan, Islamabad, June 2000, 37.
151 “not an illicit crop but rather a blessing”: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs—Integrated Regional Information Network, “Afghanistan: Interview with Female Opium Farmer,” Bitter-Sweet Harvest: Afghanistan’s New War, August 2004.
156 reduced from two hundred thousand acres: Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, “Afghan Opium Production Predicted to Reach New High,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, October 1, 2004, viewed online at www.rawa.org/opium6.htm.
156 opium, at $500 a kilo: David Mansfield and Adam Pain, Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan: The Failure of Success? Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, December 2008, 8, viewed online at www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/822E-Counter-Narcotics%20in%20Afghanistan%20BP7%202008.pdf
156 Afghan informants bankrolled: David Gibson, “President Bush Has Made Afghanistan Safe Once Again for Opium Production,” The American Chronicle, January 23, 2008, viewed online at www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/50029.
157 for $50 million to $150 million: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs—Integrated Regional Information Network, “Afghanistan: Donor-Supported Approaches to Eradication,” Bitter-Sweet Harvest: Afghanistan’s New War, August 2004, viewed online at www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=21&ReportId=63019.
157 British compensated farmers $350 for less than half an acre: “Afghan Heroin Trade ‘Booming,’ ” BBC News, July 25, 2002, viewed online at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2150580.stm.
157 farmers in Faizabad received: David Mansfield, Afghanistan: Strategy Study #9: Opium Poppy Cultivation in a Changing Policy Environment: Farmers’ Intentions for the 2002/03 Growing Seasons, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Kabul, May 2003, 1–28, viewed online at www.davidmansfield.org/all.php.
158 more than 70 percent of the farmers: Ibid.
158 DynCorp paid five dollars a day: DynCorp official, phone interview with author, March 2006.
158 killing twelve people: Interview with Dyncorp supervisor, Kabul, 2005.
159 a perverse incentive for farmers: Joel Hafvenstein, “Afghanistan’s Opium Strategy Alternatives: A Moment for Masterful Inactivity,” in Whit Mason, ed., The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
160 killed eleven Afghan aid workers: Joel Hafvenstein, Opium Season: A Year on the Frontier, Guilford, UK: The Lyons Press, 2007, 2.
160 “random, certain and universal”: UNOCHA, “Afghanistan: Donor Supported Approaches to Eradication.”
160 “establishment of those institutions for formal governance”: David Mansfield and Adam Pain, Alternative Livelihoods: Substance or Slogan? Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, October 2005, 1, viewed online at ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/14650/1/bp05ma01.pdf.
161 “made survival possible for many farmers”: Chouvy, “Afghan Opium Production.”
167 The United Nations estimates that 245,000: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2009, Kabul, September 2009, 9, viewed online at viewer.zmags.com/publication/f1effeeb#/f1effeeb/1.
TEN: THE SMILES OF BADAKHSHAN
174 bankroll the insurgency: Barnett Rubin, “The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan,” World Development 28 (2000): 1795, viewed online at pdfcast.org/pdf/the-po
litical-economy-of-war-and-peace-in-afghanistan.
174 mineral and gem mines: Ibid.
175 poppy cultivation rose by 43 percent: Jonathan Goodhand, “Frontiers and Wars: The Opium Economy in Afghanistan,” Journal of Agrarian Change, April 2005, 200.
175 produced the entire 185 tons: A. William Samii, “Drug Abuse: Iran’s ‘Thorniest Problem,’ ” The Brown Journal of International Affairs 9, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2003): 285.
176 “When children felt like buying”: Associated Press, “Without Opium, Afghan Village Economy Spirals,” www.msnbc.com, August, 2, 2009, viewed online at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32258924/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.
177 largest share of opium addicts: “In Pictures: Life in Badakhshan,” BBC News, May 17, 2010, viewed online at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8678388.stm.
177 from fourteen to eighty: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Illicit Drug Trends in Afghanistan, June 2008, 15, viewed online at www.unodc.org/documents/regional/central-asia/Illicit%20Drug%20Trends%20Report_Afg%2013%20June%202008.pdf.
177 four hundred makeshift labs: Interview with Matt DuPee, Monterey, California, 2010.
177 processed domestically: UNODC, Illicit Drug Trends in Afghanistan, 6.
181 “For most households this expansion”: Adam Pain, Afghanistan Livelihood Trajectories: Evidence from Badakhshan, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, February 2010, 12, viewed online at www.areu.org.af/EditionDetails.aspx?EditionID-310&ContentID-7&ParentID-7.
ELEVEN: MY MOTHER’S KABUL
184 four million people: Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, provincial demographics chart, viewed online at www.aisa.org.af/english/about.html.
190 heroin users doubled: Agence France Presse, “Afghan Drug Addiction Twice Global Average: UN,” June 21, 2010, viewed online at www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j7PYiYzBFkt0XCtImz5Yaz2BU0yQ.
191 police recruits test positive: Rod Nordland and Abdul Waheed Wafa, “Sign of Addiction May Also Be Its Remedy,” New York Times, May 16, 2010, viewed online at www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/world/asia/17afghan.html; and Reuters, “Drug Abuse Is a Problem Among Afghan Police Recruits,” March 10, 2010, viewed online at www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6294ZU20100310.
191 forty-three addiction treatment centers: Niamatullah Zafarzaoi, “Number of Drug Addicts on the Rise in Kabul,” Pajhwok Afghan News Service, June 1, 2010, viewed online at www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/A40BFD1CEF0A580B87257735005FBF64?OpenDocument.
191 increasing number of AIDS cases: “Afghanistan Grapples with Growing HIV/AIDS Problem,” 46664.com, October 30, 2009, viewed online at www.46664.com/News/afghanistan-grapples-with-a-growing-hivaids-problem-id=7802.aspx.
195 Russia reported that it had surpassed: Victor Ivanov, “Proposals for the Elimination of Afghan Drug Production,” a talk presented at Drug Production in Afghanistan: A Challenge for the International Community, June 8–9, 2010, Moscow.
195 90 percent of the heroin in Britain: Mark Townsend, Anushka Asthana, and Denis Campbell, “Heroin UK,” The Guardian, December 24, 2006, viewed online at www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/dec/24/drugsandalcohol.drugs.
196 that’s 8 percent of the entire U.S. population: National Survey on Drug Use and Health (for 2008), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, September 2009, viewed online at www.oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k8nsduh/2k8Results.cfm.
196 the number of overdoses is rising: Garrett Therolf, “Heroin from Afghanistan Is Cutting a Deadly Path,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2006, viewed online at articles.latimes.com/2006/dec/26/local/me-heroin26?pg=2; and McClatchy Newspapers, “Afghanistan Heroin Finds Way to US Streets,” The State, January 7, 2007, viewed online at www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2007/01/07/afghanistan-heroin-finds-way-to-us-streets.html.
196 DynCorp company team leader: Richard Lardner and Matthew Lee, “State Department Investigating Death of US Employee Hired to Help Train Afghan National Police,” Associated Press, September 16, 2009, viewed online at blog.taragana.com/health/2009/09/16/state-department-investigating-death-of-us-employee-hired-to-help-train-afghan-national-police-12042/.
196 a Dyncorp medic: Ellen Nakashima, “DynCorp Facing State Dept. Investigation,” Washington Post, April 18, 2009, viewed onine at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041703491.html.
196 Australian soldiers: Dan Oakes, “Soldier Found Unconscious After Suspected Drug Overdose in Afghanistan,” Sunday Morning Herald, June 3, 2010.
196 drugs to Americans at Bagram Airfield: Gerald Pozner, “The Taliban’s Heroin Ploy,” The Daily Beast, October 19, 2009, viewed online at www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-19/the-heroin-bomb/.
TWELVE: WOMEN ON BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW
205 from $23 million to $250 million: Interviews with DEA, Afghan, and British officials, who gave various figures, and this is the range; Eric Schmitt, “Many Sources Feed Taliban War Chest,” New York Times, October 18, 2009, viewed online at www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19taliban.html?_r=2.
206 The intensified focus on the drug trade: Author’s interview with Afghan counternarcotics officials, Kabul, 2006. Several agents in the National Interdiction Unit confirmed that more women are hired to fight the increasing number of women traffickers.
206 General Aminullah Amarkhil, the former chief of security: Gregor Salmon, Poppy: Life, Death, and Addiction Inside Afghanistan’s Opium Trade, Sydney: Random House Australia, 2009.
206 “Do not touch me”: Bilal Sarwary, “Afghan Officials Accused on Drugs,” BBC News, January 6, 2006, viewed online at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4585188.stm.
206 Amarkhil told the press: Ibid.
212 serving sentences for moral crimes: Lyce Doucet, “The Afghan Women Jailed for ‘Bad Character,’ ” BBC Newsnight, June 29, 2010, viewed online at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8771605.stm.
THIRTEEN: ADVENTURES IN KARTE PARWAN
225 eight million workers: Voice of America, “Afghanistan Battles Insecurity, Joblessness,” December 23, 2010, viewed online at www.payvand.com/news/10/dec/1219.html.
225 Seventy percent of registered voters: Bernard Gwertzman, “Limbo in Afghanistan,” Newsweek, August 17, 2009, viewed online at www.newsweek.com/2009/08/16/limbo-in-afghanistan.html.
226 biggest accused kingpins: Graeme Smith, “Afghan Officials in Drug Trade Cut Deals Across Enemy Lines,” The Globe and Mail, March 21, 2009, viewed at v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090321.AFGHANDRUGS21/TPStory/Afghanistan; Paul Watson, “The Lure of Opium Wealth Is a Potent Force in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2005, viewed online at articles.latimes.com/2005/may/29/world/fg-drugs29.
226 pure heroin on the road: Smith, “Afghan Officials in Drug Trade.”
226 Sayyed Jan: Ibid.
226 “Please assist him and do not stop him”: Letters from General Daud Daud written to the Afghan security forces in Helmand, translated by Fariba Nawa and Naeem Azizian.
226 antidrug czar denies: Daud Daud interviews with author, Kabul, 2004, 2005, 2006.
227 control of smaller bandits: Interviews with American and Afghan counter narcotic agents and officials, Kabul and Washington DC, 2006, 2007
227 Wali Karzai: James Risen, “Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade,” New York Times, October 4, 2008, viewed online at www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html.
227 mobilize up to six thousand troops: Smith, “Afghan Officials in Drug Trade.”
227 The Rendon Group: Author’s phone interview with John Rendon, head of the Rendon Group, Washington DC, 2005.
228 a trafficker claims that Daud helped him: Watson, “The Lure of Opium Wealth.”
228 secretly ordered his arrest: Smith, “Afghan Officials in Drug Trade.”
229 fuel tanker containing 1,540 pounds of opium: Ibid.
FOURTEEN: RAIDS IN TAKHAR
232 killed a few people and injured dozens: Abdul Matin Sarfar
az, “Takhar Residents Took to the Streets Against Armed Men,” Pajhwok Afghan News, October 2, 2006, viewed online at www.rawa.org/takhar4.htm.
232 makes up 3 percent of agriculture: Afghanistan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, provincial profile reports, Takhar [n.d.], 7, viewed online at www.mrrd.gov.af/nabdp/Provincial%20Profiles/Takhar%20PDP%20Provincial%20profile.pdf.
232 “They all consist of white salt”: Marco Polo’s writings in Nancy Hatch Dupree, A Historical Guide to Afghanistan, 2nd ed., rev., Kabul: Afghan Tourist Organization, 1977, 418.
233 Amniat raided two heroin labs: Interviews with Afghan secret police, Amniat, July 2006.
234 earthquake in 1998: Khaleda Atta, “Aid Relief Efforts Made by Afghans in America for Earthquake Victims,” Lemar-Aftaab, April–June 1998, viewed online at www.afghanmagazine.com/april98/articles/quake.html.
235 synthesized morphine into heroin: “Transforming Opium Poppies into Heroin,” Frontline, PBS TV, viewed online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/transform/.
236 destroying two hundred labs: David MacDonald, Drugs in Afghanistan: Opium, Outlaws, and Scorpion Tales, London: Pluto Press, 2007, 87.
236 Burmese chemists traveled: Interview with Matt DuPee, Monterey, California, 2010.
237 more traders will come: Ibid.
237 The United Nations estimates seventy-five: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Illicit Drug Trends in Afghanistan, June 2008, 15, viewed online at www.unodc.org/documents/regional/central-asia/Illicit%20Drug%20Trends%20Report_Afg%2013%20June%202008.pdf.
238 authorities destroyed 527 labs: Interview with Matt DuPee, Monterey, 2010.
241 pardoned five convicted traffickers: Farah Stockman, “Karzai’s Pardons Nullify Drug Court Gains,” Boston Globe, July 3, 2009, viewed online at www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/07/03/presidential_pardons_nullify_victories_against_afghan_drug_trade/.
241 refused to rid the government: Interviews with Afghan ministry officials, Kabul, 2006.
241 Daud is transferred: Khwaja Basir Ahmad, “Karzai Orders Huge Shakeup in Ministry of Interior,” Pajhwok Afghan News Agency, September 2010, viewed online at www.pajhwok.com/en/2010/09/01/karzai-orders-huge-shakeup-ministry-interior.