Drug Trade Funding Terrorists

The US is employing a new tactic in Afghanistan: Killing or capturing drug traffickers linked to the Taliban (though not those linked to the Karzai government). Is that even legal under international law? The US military says it is, but not everyone agrees.

Somebody opened fire on Colombian soldiers and coca eradicators Monday, leaving of a toll of dead, wounded, and missing. There are plenty of suspects.

The US war on opium poppy production in Afghanistan turned literal Tuesday when US war planes attacked and destroyed a giant pile of poppy seeds in Helmand province. That'll show those seeds!

As Congress approaches its August recess, it's time to take a look at the fate of drug reform legislation under the Democrats. No bills have reached the president's desk just yet, but the prospects are impressive on a number of key fronts.

It's not just Marines pouring into Afghanistan this summer. As the Obama administration shifts its emphasis from poppy eradication to targeting traffickers, the DEA is expanding operations there big-time.

America's drug war in Latin America is a bipartisan affair. The Obama administration is negotiating with the Colombian government to create a major anti-drug base there to replace the one in Manta, Ecuador. Oh, and it also has nice force projection capabilities.

Things are getting very bloody in Afghanistan as thousands of US Marines pour into Helmand province, the country's opium capital, in a bid to drive out the Taliban.

Faced with a growing Taliban insurgency fueled by opium and heroin profits and inflamed by the destruction of farmers' fields, the US last weekend announced a dramatic shift in its Afghan anti-drug strategy. The US will abandon what has been a pillar of its anti-drug strategy worldwide: eradication.

With US and NATO policies for dealing with the Afghan poppy group undergoing quite radical shifts -- giving up on eradication, treating traffickers as terrorists -- Gretchen Peters' exposé of the links between the traffic in prohibited drugs and the Taliban and Al Qaeda couldn't be more timely or more informative.

It's summer in Afghanistan, and that means more fighting, more casualties, and this year, more drug war. Western militaries are now aiming directly at drug trafficking networks that fund the Taliban, and the Taliban isn't taking it lying down.