In both Europe and Central Asia the drug problem has reached alarming proportions. On 20 June 2009 at about 9 p.m. in the Place de la Bastille in central Paris, for example, a drug addict made an injection into the thigh of another, who at the time was propping himself up against a shop front with his trousers down; all that happened was that the passers-by looked away. In Afghanistan the production of opium and cannabis has increased to such an extent that world prices have fallen; while drug addicts rejoice, normal people have to resign themselves to the situation.

The Afghan drug lords have created a bridgehead in Central Asia in the region of Chourabad on the Tajik bank of the Pyandj river; Tajikistan looks the other way, and NATO has failed to react. From Brussels to Kabul, and in all the other capital cities in between, no one wants to face up to the real situation because it is so terrifying: drug-related social corruption and instability are spreading throughout Central Asia, and within five or six years will spread into Russia, Europe and China.

A little reflection on eight years of an Afghan war shot through with blunders and complicities can help us better to understand this plague, and what needs to be done to meet its challenge. We can no longer afford to ignore the real enemy: in Afghanistan it is the drug business which finances terrorism, while on our side it induces a decline whose consequences are incalculable. The war on drugs justifies our intervention in Afghanistan, and at the same time protects our future.