Going after Afghanistan's drug trade  The US has tried and
failed to destroy Afghanistan's opium trade. Obama's new policy
needs to find the correct balance     • theguardian.com,     •
Jump to comments ()  In June, I met with US ambassador Richard
Holbrooke to discuss how the drug trade benefits the Afghan
Taliban. I urged him to pay close attention to the two history
chapters of my book, Seeds of Terror, warning that Washington
has a habit of making the same mistakes over and over in
Afghanistan.  He assured me the Obama team had consulted with a
raft of experts and historians, adding with a laugh: "We plan to
make new mistakes."  I am not entirely sure, however.  Broadly
speaking, the Obama administration's counternarcotics strategy
in Afghanistan is a huge step in the right direction. Thousands
more western troops have poured into the Taliban-dominated
southern poppy belt to provide security, and to train local
security forces or replace those who were themselves tied to the
drug trade. Efforts have inten