The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and élite Afghan counter-drug units are poised to stage an aggressive offensive this fall against drug traffickers who are reaping enormous profits in Afghanistan, the world's No. 1 source of opium and heroin. Although Afghanistan's poppy farmers produce about 87% of the world's opium, according to a recent United Nations report, the Bush Administration has been unwilling to deploy the U.S. military to eradicate poppy fields for fear of antagonizing the hundreds of thousands of impoverished villagers whose livelihoods depend on the crop.
Rather than target the crops, however, the new campaign aims to crush...
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