The NYT
today writes that Afghan villagers claim the US is secretly spraying their crops in an effort to reduce the opium poppy harvest, with predictable consequences:
Abdullah, a black-turbaned shepherd, said he was watching over his sheep one night in early February when he heard a plane pass low overhead three times. By morning his eyes were so swollen he could not open them and the sheep around him were dying in convulsions.
Although farmers had noticed a white powder on their crops, they cut grass and clover for their animals and picked spinach to eat anyway. Within hours the animals were severely ill, people here said, and the villagers complained of fevers, skin rashes and bloody diarrhea. The children were particularly affected. A week later, the crops - wheat, vegetables and poppies - were dying, and a dozen dead animals, including newborn lambs, lay tossed in a heap.
Naturally, the US denies any involvement but as the Afghans themselves say:
But the people in Kanai, neighboring Tanai and at least two other villages are incredulous. For them, there is no doubt that someone sprayed their lands and, despite official denials, they blame the United States, which still controls the skies in Afghanistan.
"They are the ones with the planes," said Abdul Ahmad, brother of the shepherd, Abdullah. Between them, the brothers had lost 200 animals from symptoms that suggested poisoning, he said.
"They went mad, their eyes went blue and they could not eat," he said of their sheep and goats. "Water was coming from their mouths, they were trying to eat their droppings and they were shivering," he said. The animals appeared completely healthy the day before, he said.
Emphasis added.
It is obviously hard to know what is really going on. However, the track record of the United States in general and this administration in particular, does not lend their denials great credibility.
It is particularly ironic that opium production has skyrocketed in Afghanistan since the US invasion. The country remains on the brink of failure, according a recent UN report cited by CNN:
As a result, the average life expectancy for an Afghan is 44.5 years, 20 years less than in neighboring countries.
One Afghan woman dies in pregnancy every 30 minutes and the country is the world leader in infant deaths caused by contaminated water.
The report was also critical of the U.S.-led military engagement in Afghanistan, saying it helped produce a climate of "fear, intimidation, terror and lawlessness" and neglected the longer-term threat to security posed by inequality and injustice, according to the Associated Press.