Afghanistan's opium crop has grown 59% this year. It is sure a good thing that we liberated that country.

Afghanistan's world-leading opium cultivation rose a "staggering" 59 percent this year, the U.N. anti-drugs chief announced Saturday in urging the government to crack down on big traffickers and remove corrupt officials and police.

The record crop yielded 6,100 tons of opium, or enough to make 610 tons of heroin — outstripping the demand of the world's heroin users by a third, according to U.N. figures.

Officials warned that the illicit trade is undermining the Afghan government, which is under attack by Islamic militants that a U.S.-led offensive helped drive from power in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bases.

"The news is very bad. On the opium front today in some of the provinces of Afghanistan, we face a state of emergency," Antonio Maria Costa, chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said at a news conference. "In the southern provinces, the situation is out of control."

This is just another example of how the enemy can use our weaknesses agianst us. They use our dependance on oil to purchase weapons and training for terrorists and they use American drug users in exactly the same way.

How can we ever convince this type of person to stop attacking us if they are able to use our weaknesses against us so effectively? They hate us not for our successes but for our deficiencies. We seem to them to be a corrupt society that does not deserve the popularity that we have enjoyed in the past. Of course George Bush has done much to make us appear even weaker in the eyes of these people. As long as he is in office there is no hope that we will ever make any headway in solving the problems that exist in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Actually George Bush may be the single most identified reason for our lack of success at interacting and problem solving with countries that are suspicious and wary or America. As long as he continues to treat these countries like third class citizens of this planet, and refuses to negotiate with them even a little bit, he places Americans in jeopardy.