As noted earlier today, the British are mulling a retreat from Afghanistan. That would be their second failure to quell the barbaric Afghans, the first having been in the 19th century. Of course this time the British part of this dirty little war became only a sideshow to the US "surge". It was smarmy Tony Bliar's way of showing that he was good buddies with Junior Bush.
Still, invading Afghanistan had to be justified somehow. Since there were obviously no WMDs there, one of the reasons given for the invasion was to suppress the growing of opium poppies, thus opening another front in the war on drugs. Why is it America keeps making war on everything -- drugs, poverty, Iraq, terrorism? It would be different if we were winning the wars... But I digress.
According to Andrew Marshall's excellent book, The Trouser People*, more opium and heroin comes out of Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) than Afghanistan. The Burmese generals will be quite happy if the "allies" defoliate Afghanistan down to the last ... errr... bush, but they're not beting on it.
By the way, the Burmese government has been waging its own genocidal war on the Shan, Wa and other ethnic minorities for years. What are we doing about Burma? Nothing!
About a century ago, Lord Salisbury said, "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible". Perhaps, rather than waging useless wars on the other side of the world, nothing is precisely the right thing to do.
* 2002, Counterpoint, New York. The quotation from Lord Salisbury is from the Epilogue.
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