Afghanistan Aff
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WOD povertyThe war on drugs will make everyone join the Taleban Albone & Billet 7 (Tim and Claire, “Ruined poppy farmers join ranks with the Taleban”, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1444124.ece, date accessed:6/22/2010) AK “The people are unhappy with this eradication campaign; if it goes on they will all join the Taleban,” Dilbar, a poppy farmer in Helmand province, told The Times. The prospect of such a surge in Taleban numbers is bad news for the 5,000 British troops based in Helmand and 1,400 more heading there after the announcement by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary. The fiercest fighting since the Taleban were overthrown in 2001 came last year, with more than 4,000 people killed, and intelligence reports predict a new offensive this spring. WOD devastates Afghani farmers Slater 2010 (Meredith, “Will This Attempt to Eradicate Afghanistan’s Poppies Be Any Different?”, Global Poverty, http://globalpoverty.change.org/blog/view/will_this_attempt_to_eradicate_afghanistans_poppies_be_any_different, date accessed:6/22/2010) AK Poppy farmers in Afghanistan have always had it rough. Economic instability, scarce land and the general absence of rule of law in the Afghan countryside have made poppy cultivation far from a stable line of work. Yet national and international campaigns to eradicate poppy farming have consistently failed. Now the Obama administration has a new approach — but will it succeed? The Taliban opium ban from 2000-2001 caused the virtual (if temporary) elimination of the country's opium economy. But it also pushed poppy farmers deep into debt and caused many to lose their land and flee their homes. And by November 2001, the collapse of the economy and the scarcity of other sources of revenue forced many of the country's farmers to revert back to growing opium anyway. The next year, the Afghan government made a renewed attempt at eradication by offering poppy farmers up to $500 per acre of destroyed poppies. Yet according to UN estimates, that same acre can earn a poppy farmer more than $6,000 — so what would be the benefit to them? Plus, most farmers who did opt into the deal never saw their cash. The international community hasn't had a much better track record. U.S., U.K. and NATO efforts to crack down on opium cultivation throughout the mid-2000s often caused raw opium prices to skyrocket, simply encouraging some Afghan farmers to continuing planting opium poppies. For others, the chemical spraying and bulldozing of their poppy fields caused them to lose everything they had, often pushing desperately poor farmers to join the Taliban. WOD poverty500,000 farmers raise poppies to support themselves; it’s their only option Yousafzai 8 (Sami, March 29, http://www.newsweek.com/2008/03/29/the-opium-brides-of-afghanistan.html, “The Opium Brides of Afghanistan”, date accessed: 6/22/2010) AK While law enforcers predict yet another record opium harvest in Afghanistan this spring, most farmers are struggling to survive. An estimated 500,000 Afghan families support themselves by raising poppies, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Last year those growers received an estimated $1 billion for their crops—about $2,000 per household. With at least six members in the average family, opium growers' per capita income is roughly $300. The real profits go to the traffickers, their Taliban allies and the crooked officials who help them operate. The country's well-oiled narcotics machine generates in excess of $4 billion a year from exports of processed opium and heroin—more than half of Afghanistan's $7.5 billion GDP, according to the UNODC. Opium is the only feasible crop for farmers Durham 9 (Major Jan R., 4/5/2009, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA502865, date accessed: 6/22/2010) AK Farmers: The foundation of the opium economy is made up of 2.4 million farmers and day-laborers23 who share an estimated 20 percent of the profits. 24 While some farmers grow poppy to finance their “upward social mobility,”25 the majority cultivate it out of a lack of legitimate substitutes because often opium “provides the only access to land, credit, water and employment”26 for many farmers and laborers. As the largest segment of Afghan society (78 percent live in rural areas and the majority of that population is engaged in agriculture)27 farmers are different from the other groups in another important way as well. In the same manner that the general populace is the center of gravity in counterinsurgency operations, the rural farmer is the center of gravity for counterdrug operations by virtue of his role in the opium economy and his numbers. Because the Afghan farmer remains the political prize in both counterinsurgency and counterdrug contexts, counterdrug operations must be designed to wean, not force, the Afghan farmer away from opium to legal alternatives to prevent driving him to the Taliban and other armed groups for protection against eradication Poverty Impacts- WarWidespread poverty in Afghanistan risks a failed state Chan 8 (ching Li, July 24, “Afghanistan’s war on poverty”, http://www.globalenvision.org/2008/07/24/afghanistans-war-poverty, date accessed: 6/22/2010) AK For a country that has received billions of dollars in international assistance since 2002, some may be surprised to hear that many Afghans still don't have access to clean drinking water, sewage systems, electricity. As of this year, the World Bank says "only 13% of Afghans have access to safe drinking water, 12% to adequate sanitation, and just 6% to electricity." "What puzzles poorer Afghans," writes a BBC correspondent, "is why so many basic problems haven't been solved, despite the billions of dollars of international aid." So, where has the billions of aid dollars gone? One Afghan schoolteacher told BBC to look at the lavish lifestyle of corrupt officials. "Go and see who owns these expensive houses in (the suburb of) Wazir Akbar Khan and who is driving land cruisers," he says. "Karzai should ask these officials how they got so rich overnight, instead of making empty promises again and again." Afghanistan is considered one of the world's most corrupt countries. It ranked 172 out of 179 countries last year on Transparency International's corruption-perceptions index. Karzai's government insists they're trying to tackle corruption, but, as this Q&A between BBC.com readers and Afghan villagers reveals, people still feel like this government is letting them down. Many, including Afghanistan's former NATO commander, think the country still risks becoming a failed state. U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama called Afghanistan's situation "precarious and urgent" during a high-profile visit there last week. Poverty causes war in Afghanistan BBC 9 (BBC News, Wed 18, “Afghans ‘blame poverty for war’”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8363151.stm, date accessed: 6/22/2010) AK Poverty and unemployment are overwhelmingly seen as the main reasons behind conflict in Afghanistan, according to a survey in that country. British aid agency Oxfam - which questioned 704 Afghans - said seven out of 10 respondents blamed these factors. Taliban violence was seen as less important than government weakness and corruption, according to the poll. Oxfam said the survey showed that the country needed more than military solutions. Poverty is more deadly than war in Afghanistan Zeenews 10 (“Poverty deadlier than United Nations: Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and poverty kills more Afghans than war, according to a new report issued by the human rights division of the UN. "Poverty actually kills more Afghans than those who die as a direct result of the armed conflict," Norah Niland, Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Afghanistan said. "Poverty deprives two-thirds of the Afghan population from living a decent and dignified life. This includes the inability to enjoy their most basic and fundamental rights, such as getting an education or having access to health services," he added. The top UN human rights official in the country stressed that the root cause of poverty in Afghanistan was human rights violation that took the shape of patronage, corruption, impunity and opting for short-term solutions over long-term developmental goals. 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