Afghanistan Aff



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DEA/ US K2 WOD


The DEA drives the drug war in Afghanistan- moins them it would collapse



Holton 10 (Chuck, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/April/DEA-Agents-Target-Afghanistans-Narco-Insurgency/, date accessed: 6/23/2010) AK

AFGHANISTAN -- The Drug Enforcement Administration started fighting the illegal drug trade in 1973. Its main focus: keeping drugs out of the U.S. However, in recent years, the agency has expanded its mission to tracking drugs to their source - a strategy which puts them at the center of the War on Terror. DEA FAST Teams Five years ago, fewer than a dozen DEA agents were responsible for covering all of Afghanistan. Today, there are nearly 100 agents.  That's because the fight there is against a narco-insurgency, meaning the Taliban receive a large part of their funding from illegal drug activity. Chuck Holton recently returned from Afghanistan.  Click play for his report.  Also, watch Holton's comments on the situation in Afghanistan here. As the U.S. military works to defeat the enemy and minimize collateral damage, the DEA is using its Foreign Deployed Assistance and Support, or FAST, teams to help hunt for Taliban drug kingpins. "We do basically all the types of operations we would do back home," said one DEA official, who spoke with CBN News on condition of anonymity for security reasons. "Whether a search warrant, an arrest warrant, seizure of drugs, any type of counternarcotics law enforcement, we train our Afghan counterparts in those same kind of missions. "We are not military. We are law enforcement," he explained. "So what we do is when we come over to Afghanistan - what gives us the ability to function and work in this country -- is going along with our Afghan counterparts." "We are there to advise and mentor and train them in counternarcotics law and procedures," he said. "And we're really starting to see some good effects come from that." Early Morning Raid CBN News traveled along with one of the DEA FAST teams on an early morning raid near Kandahar along with Navy SEALS and members of the Afghan National Army. The target: an Afghan drug runner who supports the insurgency with profits from illegal narcotics. A search of the compound yielded drugs and bomb making materials, which were gathered up and destroyed. The men detained on site were taken to face trial before an Afghan tribunal. The average sentence for those convicted is 20 years in prison.


The DEA drives the drug war in Afghanistan- taking them away would solve



Bowman 9 (Tom, July 24, NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111174481date accessed: 6/23/2010) AK

The Drug Enforcement Administration is beefing up its presence in Afghanistan, sending dozens more agents to go after caches of opium that are a main source of money for Taliban insurgents. The DEA is also drawing up a list of the top 10 or 20 narco-traffickers in Afghanistan, and plans to work with Afghan officials to track them down and arrest them. "One year ago, we had 13 personnel in Afghanistan working counternarcotics," says Jay Fitzpatrick, a DEA assistant regional director who is based in the Afghan capital of Kabul. "We're in the process of increasing the number of personnel to 81. We hope to be at that ceiling by December." The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the Taliban make hundreds of millions of dollars off the burgeoning opium trade in Afghanistan, as much as $400 million, that helps them buy weapons and pay local Afghan citizens, who need a job and might not necessarily agree with Taliban ideology. Military officers call them "$10 Tabies" because they are only in it for the money. "The money from narcotics is very critical to the insurgents," Fitzpatrick says. The DEA's increased presence is all part of a U.S. government effort to move away from poppy crop eradication, which was seen as unduly harming farmers, and moving instead to mid-level drug operators, drug labs and high-level traffickers. Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, talked about that shift just last week. "This administration set out to reverse the counternarcotics program by de-emphasizing crop eradication and emphasizing interdiction," Holbrooke told The Associated Press. "The forces in the south are actually making that a reality. It's a historic change if it's successful, and the first indications were very, very promising."

DEA/ US K2 WOD


The DEA & US military are taking charge of the WOD in Afghanistan
Washington Times 10 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/02/dea-official-says-better-cooperation-caused-opium-/?page=1, april 2nd, date accessed: 6//23/2010) AK

Opium seizures in Afghanistan soared 924 percent last year because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces, the top U.S. drug enforcement official said Thursday. The Taliban largely funds its insurgency by profits from the opium trade, making it a growing target of U.S. and Afghan anti-insurgency operations. Afghanistan produces the raw opium used to make 90 percent of the world's heroin. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration now has 96 agents in the country who joined with Afghan counterparts and NATO forces in more than 80 combined operations last year, acting DEA administrator Michele Leonhart told reporters in Kabul. "That is the success of bringing the elements, civil, military Afghan partners together," Ms. Leonhart said. She did not give figures for total amounts of drugs seized but said the increase was 924 percent between 2008 and 2009. The United Nations reported 50 tons of opium was seized in the first half of last year. International groups estimate that only about 2 percent of Afghanistan's drug production was blocked from leaving the country in 2008 for markets in Central Asia and Europe. Ms. Leonhart said eradication efforts had already scored some success in the south, with opium cultivation down more than 30 percent in Helmand province that is responsible for half of Afghanistan's total production. She said the DEA was working with U.S. forces moving into the Taliban heartland, including "significant operations" in Helmand, where the poppy harvest season is in full-swing. Such operations place the Afghan government and its foreign allies in a bind because eradicating poppy fields risks driving angry farmers, for whom opium poppy is a cheap, hardy, low-risk crop, into the arms of the insurgents because they fear the loss of their livelihood. Efforts to replace opium with other crops such as wheat and vegetables haven't scored wide success because profits for the farmers are much lower than for poppies.


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