Leaving Afghanistan will have consequences

No wonder poppy cultivation is again booming despite just 14 per cent of the population growing the crop in 2007 with 70 per cent of opium produced in the five southern provinces where the insurgency is strongest. With most of Afghanistan's productive land destroyed by decades of conflict, opium remains nearly 10 times more lucrative to produce than any practicable alternative crop, such as wheat ($5,200 per hectare versus $545 per hectare). This is despite the potential of saffron to earn up to $2,000 more per hectare than opium when taking into account crop yields and price differentials

While Haigh suggests that the presence of allied troops was not "without some practical benefit as drug couriers and users", it is worth noting that when the Taliban cut opium production in 2001 from 3,276 tons to 185 tons, a rise in the price of opium saw its income grow from $1.1 billion to $7.3 billion given its importance to the global opium market.

As the US literature suggests, exiting Afghanistan quickly runs the risk of such a volatile region getting much worse, perhaps out of control. Clearly the Pashtun regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan have become home to a brand of political Islam that now manifests itself primarily in the form of global jihadism.

With no sane nation wanting Pakistan also to collapse, with the US publications even suggesting that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization get involved, Australians too need to be informed of all the risks in the face of silly arguments that the US alone should be left to carry the burden.