The UN repeats its bad advice. No news there, I suppose, but the Guardian has the details:

The UN today called on Nato forces to destroy the booming opium industry in southern Afghanistan, where 3,600 British combat troops are battling a resurgent Taliban. The call was made by Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), who said it would be “very difficult” to defeat insurgents unless there was a “robust” crackdown on drug traffickers. He told a news conference in Brussels: “I call on Nato forces to destroy the heroin labs, disband the open opium bazaars, attack the opium convoys and bring justice to the big traders.

What a fool. According to his own data, nearly 13% of the Afghan population is “involved” (whatever that might mean) in opium production. Quite how destroying their livelihood is meant to win them over is beyond me. As I’m far from the first to have suggested, it would be far better to buy that crop and then either destroy it or use it as a source of medical opiates (of which there’s a global shortage).