LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Afghanistan: Southern Afghanistan
built 627 days ago
NATO's supreme commander, the American general James Jones, is fond of saying that Afghanistan's main problem is drugs, not the Taliban. However, without taking on the Taliban, the drug problem cannot be addressed. In the four southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, and Uruzgan, the Taliban and their mafia friends from Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia command farmers to grow poppies so they can rake in money from taxes and peddle heroin abroad to fund their movement. These provinces are the main base and command center for the Taliban and are now entirely devoid of any signs of economic reconstruction or the presence of NGOs. I was told that British, Dutch, and Canadian troops under NATO command will be deployed in these provinces this summer; but they have adamantly refused to address the poppy problem, and each country has a different strategy for contending with the Taliban. The British say they will go on the offensive; the Dutch say they will act defensively.
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Afghanistan is slightly smaller than the state of Texas in the United States, and it occupies a landlocked highland at about the same latitude as Texas. The country covers an area of 652,225 sq km (251,825 sq mi). Its maximum length from east to west is about 1,240 km (about 770 mi); from north to south it is about 1,015 km (about 630 mi). The northwestern, western, and southern border areas are primarily desert plains and rocky ranges, whereas in the northeast the land rises progressively higher into the glacier-covered peaks of the Hindu Kush, an extension of the western Himalayas. The northern border is formed by the Amu Darya river and its tributary, the Panj.
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The mountainous country of Afghanistan lies in south-central Asia. It is bordered by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and Pakistan. A panhandle on the northeast, the Wakhan Corridor, connects it with China. Its southernmost part is separated from the nearest sea, the Arabian Sea, by 300 miles (480 kilometers) of Pakistani territory.
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The tone of the recent letter from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the German government urging Germany to pony up more troops for the NATO campaign in Southern Afghanistan was "stern," according to a German government spokesman. Unnamed Berlin officials were quoted in the German press calling it an "outrage" and even, in one case, an "impertinence." Nonsense, retorted a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity this week: "It was a request by one member of the alliance to another: It was not a demand." Maybe so, but the chilly reception to the missive augurs poorly for Washington's new campaign to persuade allies to dispatch more troops to volatile parts of southern Afghanistan.
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After winning a major battle against a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan, NATO forces are working to keep their gains from slipping away. Building a road to link remote villages is one way they hope to keep locals from siding with the enemy.
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In a small district in southern Afghanistan, U.S.-backed Afghan drug forces opened fire on farmers who were blocking roads and throwing rocks to protest the destruction of their poppy fields earlier this year. Scores were injured in the firefight.
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Southern Afghanistan