Worrying over Afghanistan’s Pot-head Soldiers

"by DAVID AXE

Russia Today emailed me again to request an interview. The subject this time: drug use in the Afghan army. This Guardian video report on U.S. advisers to the Afghan National Army has revived interest in the subject. The video has cropped up on Danger Room and The Huffington Post. I’ll be on RT tomorrow.

I’m a little disappointed that so many reporters have latched onto the drug issue, as though that were one of the major impediments to building a U.S.-style Afghan military. All Afghans smoke pot — especially in winter, when roads are snowed in and nobody’s working. In Baraki Barak, marijuana grows ten feet tall in culverts and in the shade of downtown buildings. (Pictured below.) Nobody in Baraki Barak — not the local cops or government or the resident U.S. Army force — seems all that troubled by it."
War is Boring