Yet—the General Anthony I’ve known most of my working life would take the risk. Out of loyalty to his men, and to accomplish the mission. I tell myself the general did not rule out exfil by air. He told me to create a situation safe for helos to land.
That much was in character. The general found good men and gave them room to run. He always had with me.
It was eight years ago.
The pretty staff sergeant ushered me into Brigadier General William Anthony’s office. The great man was sitting behind a polished desk. Spread upon the tabletop were the parts of several sniper rifles.
A Husqvarna 6.5 mm Mauser, an M42, and a Winchester Model 70. The Model 70 looked like a Pre-64. The general knew his rifles.
I saluted. “Chief Warrant Officer Breed reporting as ordered, Sir.”
“At ease, Breed.”
The general was examining the bolt assemblies of the three weapons. We shot together regularly. The M42 and Mauser were his standard weapons. The Winchester was a new acquisition. General Anthony’s firearms collection was as legendary as his collection of women. A qualified sniper himself, by God he knew how to use them.
Rifles and women.
“The Swedes got it right, Breed. They saw the superiority of the Mauser action and refused to mess with perfection.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Winchester, too. They took the best bolt action in the world and dropped it into an American platform.”
I knew better than to interrupt the general.
“Remington wanted to improve things. The 700 series is a great rifle, but flawed.”
“I think they’ve ironed out the bugs, Sir.”
“Have they?” The general held the M42 bolt to the light, inspected its lugs. “I suppose they have. But the difficulties were unnecessary.”
The general sighed and put the bolt down. Stood, and rose to his full six feet, two inches. Lean and hard. He regularly joined operators on forced marches and combative drills. The old man held his own against sergeants half his age.
“I need you for a mission.” General Anthony strode across his office to a giant wall map of the region. Waved me over. The map covered Afghanistan, Pakistan, western China, and Tajikistan.
I joined the general and waited for him to continue.
“We all know about poppies,” the general said. “Afghanistan’s economy runs on poppies. No other crop has the economics. The margins on wheat and beans aren’t enough to support the farmers. Every square mile of arable land is devoted to poppies. Opium production, Breed, is Afghanistan’s number one industry. Sixty billion dollars a year.”
Of course, we all knew about poppies. Poppy fields grew within spitting distance of our airfields and operating bases. The dollar value of the crop shocked me. Anthony registered the surprise on my face. Smiled.
“Sixty billion a year, Breed. Opium finances the Afghan economy. It finances the government, it finances the Taliban. These people are not peasants. They run a sophisticated international business. Most drugs entering the United States enter through Mexico. Most drugs entering Europe and Russia come from Afghanistan.”
“Sir, I’ve always wondered…”
“Don’t be shy, Breed.”
“There are poppy fields right outside the wire. Why don’t we raze them?”
“Afghan drugs don’t enter the United States, so the US government doesn’t give a rat’s ass. We, the military, have focused on kinetic aspects of the campaign. Left the war on drugs to the ANA. We give them money, they do the razing. The ANA, of course, are corrupt and ineffective. I reckon it’s time we shook the box.”
Nowadays, you’d expect a PowerPoint presentation. General Anthony was old school. He gestured toward an acetate overlay. Arrows were drawn in blue felt-tip marker from Helmand province, extending west into Iran. Red arrows from the south flowed north of Kabul, into the harsh mountain passes of Kunar and Nuristan. Reached through Badakhshan into Tajikistan and Pakistan. One long arrow stretched through the finger of the Wakhan Corridor, all the way to China.
“Drug smuggling,” General Anthony said, “is all about routes. Highways over which caravans can pass. All the routes into Iran are over open ground, much of it desert. Look at Tajikistan. What do you see?”
“A third of the frontier is a no-brainer,” I replied. “Flat ground, a nonexistent border. You can cross in a pickup truck. But—you stand out like a sore thumb. You could lose six out of every ten loads. That’s not viable. The eastern two-thirds is mountainous. Melts into the Hindu Kush. There are no effective borders.”
The general gestured at the map. “That’s right. The western border is much easier to interdict than the eastern. In fact, the western border remains invested with units that had been the Northern Alliance. Enemies of the Taliban.”
“The borders are nothing more than lines on a map,” I said. “The tribes don’t recognize them. They cross freely. In the winter, ninety percent of those mountains are impassable. We don’t go there.”
The general looked troubled. “Breed, I won’t admit this in front of the men, but we are losing.”
“Sir?”
“The outposts we maintain in those high mountain valleys are subject to terrible attrition. Morale among our regular troops is plunging. Rules of engagement designed by civilian authorities limit their scope for action. We don’t have enough men to ensure victory, yet the men we have in those outposts make great targets.”
“Is there no solution?”
Anthony pointed to the red arrows on the map. “I asked for more men. Until my requests are granted, I have to strike at the Talis any way I know how. These are the opium smuggling routes into Russia. Through the high mountain valleys, into Pakistan, China, and Tajikistan. Similar routes carry arms and explosives back.”
“What about money, Sir?”
“The proceeds of the trade are laundered through offshore banks and held in Pakistan. The Talis are not peasants. Their technology is sophisticated. They receive assistance from Al Qaeda.”
The general was setting the stage. He was about to come to the mission. I remained silent, gave him time.
“I intend to interdict their opium caravans,” he said. “To do that,
