The Dark Art by Edward Follis Book Review

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I of the many messes the United States is leaving backside every bit it formally withdraws from Afghanistan is that it'south more or less a narco country. Despite the United States spending nearly $8 billion to fight the Afghan narcotics trade, the land is producing more opium than ever. It's unlikely to get better anytime soon: Last month, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan "are no longer a top priority."

The roots of the problem really aren't that complicated, says Edward Follis. "It actually does come down to basic economics." The Taliban "has decided they would exploit the economic dearth of all these people that can't provide for themselves, and they have it from in that location."

For several years, Follis headed upwardly the Drug Enforcement Administration'southward efforts in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan every bit the bureau'south country attaché, reporting straight to the US administrator. Later chasing drug kingpins in Thailand, United mexican states, and Republic of colombia, Follis was sent to Transitional islamic state of afghanistan in 2006 and was tasked with bringing downwards the figures behind its narcotics trade. He spent 27 years with the agency. Today he is manager of special projects for 5 Stones Intelligence, an intel and investigative business firm based in Miami.

Follis recounts his experiences in his memoir (with co-author Douglas Century), The Nighttime Fine art: My Undercover Life in Global Narco-Terrorism, which was published last year. In the book, Follis recounts making drug deals with Mexican cartels, setting upward phony gun deals, working deep undercover to help take down the notorious Shan United Regular army in Burma, and hanging out with a major Lebanese drug trafficker at Disneyland. In Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, he befriended accused Taliban financier Haji Juma Khan. While some American officials wanted to take out Khan in a drone strike, Follis claims that he convincingly argued that he should be brought in live. Khan is now awaiting trial in New York City on charges of conspiring to distribute narcotics to back up a terrorist organization.

As he looks back on his time in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, Follis calls the Afghan government's drug eradication efforts "a joke." Merely the real issue, he says, is that for many Afghans, cultivating poppies or producing opium is by far the best way to feed their families. Opium sells for a loftier price and is relatively easy to shop. Not that beingness a poppy farmer is always a adept bargain: Follis says drug traffickers often treat the farmers like sharecroppers, giving them seeds and equipment and so coming back to collect the product during the harvest season. "When I was in Afghanistan, I realized very quickly it was a nation of indentured servants," he says. "While nosotros were obsessing on parliamentary democracy, the common folk, they're trying to put nutrient on the table every day."

In the mid-1980s, Afghanistan produced about twenty percentage of the world'south opium. Today it produces more than than 80 percent. There was a driblet in production when the Taliban took over in the mid-1990s. While the Islamists allowed poppy production for a few years, in 2000, they issued a prescript banning the practice, causing a drastic driblet in production. Follis says reports that the Taliban was sitting on a large amount of opium on the eve of the Afghan War in 2001 are authentic: "I know that earlier [the United States and its allies] entered from the northward into Kabul, there were xxx tons of opium placed in warehouses."

As the U.s. and the new Afghan authorities took on the Taliban, opium production began to skyrocket. Proceeds from drug trafficking have now become a major income source for the Taliban. Follis predicts we'll meet more of these alliances betwixt militants and organized crime; he cites ISIS equally a prime instance. "These transnational traffickers have started to have sexual activity with the terrorists," he says, "and they got an unholy marriage."

The CIA, Follis says, "keep[s] united states safe in many ways, but rule of law is different than national security priorities."

Battling Transitional islamic state of afghanistan's drug kingpins was a particular challenge, Follis recalls. There were serious security issues: Agents could not always travel freely or safely and informants had little or no protection. And the trade was aided and abetted at the pinnacle levels of government, he says. Onetime Afghan President Hamid Karzai's late one-half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was rumored to be deeply involved in the heroin trade. Follis bolsters this claim: "Without equivocation, Wali was highly implicated, particularly in western Transitional islamic state of afghanistan." Further complicating things, Wali was rumored to exist working with the Fundamental Intelligence Agency.

Follis says the DEA and CIA often bumped heads in Afghanistan. "You accept a DEA amanuensis and paratroop him in anywhere in the globe, in curt society he'll meet with local cops, develop data, informants, bring people to justice," Follis says. "The people with that agency y'all just mentioned, their mandate is different than the DEA mandate. It's not dichotomous, but it is different, in terms of 'We'll do this to advance these causes.' They exercise incredible work and keep u.s.a. condom in many ways, only rule of police force is dissimilar than national security priorities."

While hinting that the CIA sometimes turned a blind heart to the Afghan drug trade, Follis won't get into specifics. In his book, he writes, "Virtually everywhere in the earth I worked, I had static with the CIA. Nosotros're often working the aforementioned terrain, but with different legal and moral parameters…They exist completely in the shadows." Follis includes this footnote about Haji Juma Khan: "In 2001, afterward the Coalition invasion of Afghanistan, Haji Juma Khan had been briefly detained by United states authorities, only—for reasons that remain somewhat mysterious even today—he was near immediately released." In 2010, the New York Times reported that Khan had a close working relationship with the CIA and DEA before his eventual arrest. (The CIA declined to comment for this article.)

To Follis, whatever solution to Afghanistan'southward opium problem must be comprehensive: Reduce drug use, especially in the Us and Europe; provide stability then Afghan farmers tin can survive without poppies; and dismantle the traffickers' organizations by rooting out corrupt officials. It all comes back to economic science: "If people don't stick it in their veins, snort it, or smoke information technology, there wouldn't be a market. Information technology's a business, and that's what it comes down to."

But Follis is not optimistic about Afghanistan'due south future. "When we pull out completely," he says, "y'all ameliorate know without equivocation that the Taliban will exist marching on Kabul."

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Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/ed-follis-dea-afghanistan-opium/

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