November 13, 2017 – Alfred McCoy on Opium production in Afghanistan – Episode 4546

Professor and author Alfred McCoy joins Scott to discuss his latest article “Washington’s Drug of Choice in the War on Terror.” McCoy describes how heroin first became a major factor of the Afghan economy and credits the Taliban’s capture of the illicit opium market for their recent resurgence. According to McCoy, at the peak of the Columbian cartel’s operations cocaine made up 3% of Columbia’s GDP; in Afghanistan in 2008 it was 58%. McCoy then details how all of the U.S. programs to disincentivize people from growing opium have blown up and actually increased incentives to grow opium. McCoy explains why he thinks that the combination of covert and conventional warfare will make Afghanistan the major war of the Trump administration—and how America’s failure to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan is emblematic of a fading superpower. Finally Scott asks: what’s the solution?

Alfred McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. McCoy is the author of “The Politics of Heroin” “The Question of Torture” and “In The Shadows of the American Century.” He writes regularly at TomDispatch.com.

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