Poppy Seeds of Discontent

From Afghanistan, a Sobering Look at the Eradication Game

Driving around Afghanistan in a white Ford pickup truck, heading off to rip up some farmer's poppy fields, David Lockyear, an American contractor with a goatee and lots of tattoos, was having a blast.

"This is redneck heaven," he said. "You get to run around the desert on ATVs and pickups, shoot guns and get paid for it. Man, it's the perfect job!"

The next day, the job got a little tougher when Taliban guerrillas ambushed American eradicators, starting a four-hour firefight that left at least eight people dead. Caught in the middle of the battle was one of the world's best war correspondents, Jon Lee Anderson, who lived to tell the tale in a terrific but disturbing story in the July 9 and 16 issue of the New Yorker.

Anderson has spent much of this millennium covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in dispatches published first in the New Yorker and then in his widely praised books "The Lion's Grave" and "The Fall of Baghdad." He's a brave, smart reporter with a great eye for detail and a straightforward writing style that gives the reader a feel of what it's like to be there. His portrait of the current state of the war in Afghanistan will not leave you feeling optimistic.

In 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, driving out the Taliban regime that had sheltered Osama bin Laden while he plotted the 9/11 attacks. But in the last two years, the Taliban has made a comeback and now controls large portions of the country. Their resurgence was bankrolled by an alliance with the opium trade: The Taliban protects farmers from the U.S.-backed opium eradication program, Anderson writes, in return for a cut of the profits.

This spring, Anderson hooked up with a team of 40 Americans working for DynCorp, a Virginia-based company hired by the U.S. government to help eradicate the Afghan opium crop, which happens to be the main source of cash for many of the country's farmers. On the first day, the Americans, aided by some Afghan policemen, started tearing up fields of opium poppies while the local farmers watched, sullen and angry.

"You've made a big mistake," one farmer told them.

That statement proved prophetic. The next day, as the Americans continued ripping up fields, they were attacked by Taliban fighters and driven from the area. For the next 10 days, the Americans stayed in their camp, lifting weights, watching DVDs and surfing the Web.

Anderson used this lull to go out and do some reporting, talking to farmers, politicians and foreign observers. He learned that the poppy eradication program was rife with corruption. Farmers who were politically connected -- or bribed the right people -- were allowed to continue growing poppies. Farmers without clout were liable to have their crops destroyed.

After their 10-day lull, the American contractors were sent back to the area where they had been ambushed, just to prove that they couldn't be scared off. Protected by police, they destroyed one poppy field. But when they set out to destroy a far richer field across the road, the police balked and promptly departed, going off to -- and here's a great little detail -- smoke hashish.

Without police protection, the Americans fled, angry but impotent. "We ought to take all those guys and hang them in public, beginning with the governor," one American contractor grumbled. Then he laughed. "Good thing I'm not an idealist -- I'm just here for the money."

If Anderson's account is accurate, and I suspect it is, the war in Afghanistan won't be over anytime soon.

Beauty and the Beat

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be the beauty editor of a glossy national magazine?

Neither have I. But Janet Carlson Freed, who is the "beauty and health director" of Town & Country magazine, tells us all about it in a piece called "Diary of a Beauty Editor."

Her job, she reveals, consists of "having to test, sniff, slather, lather, dab, swipe and evaluate thousands of cosmetics each year." But that's not all. She also has to "meet the heads of cosmetics companies or their public relations reps" and "go to day spas to try out facials and massages."

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Freed's diary begins on Jan. 18, 2006, while she's having her left thigh massaged at a New York City spa. "I really have to concentrate not to control my leg and instead let a stranger take charge of it," she writes. She manages to do this and leaves the massage feeling relaxed. "I walk into the ladies' locker room to dress and I pick up what I presume to be hair spray and spray my hair with -- oh, no! -- deodorant! I hope nobody saw."

This deodorant accident was apparently quite traumatic, because the next diary entry doesn't come until nearly 11 months later -- on Nov. 9, when Freed has her annual lunch with Leonard Lauder, chairman of Estee Lauder, the cosmetics company.

Lauder is, she writes, "one of the most gracious, intelligent, interesting and forward-thinking of cosmetics executives." So what do they talk about? Eye shadow? Mascara? Zit creams? No, no and no. Instead, Lauder delivers a passionate monologue "all about acid reflux." He even writes out a list of things she shouldn't eat or drink, including "carbonated beverages, orange and grapefruit."

Armed with that wisdom, Freed carries on. She books an "acupuncture facial." She goes to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show to check out "a new line of luxury dog-grooming products." She goes to a cosmetics company party and learns that one of the hot new ingredients in this year's skin-care products is something called "Chinese skullcap." Alas, she does not explain what "Chinese skullcap" is. I just hope the name is, you know, metaphorical, not literal.

The life of a beauty editor is a wild roller-coaster ride, full of ups and downs, highs and lows, peaks and valleys. "I'm feeling wiped out," Freed writes on Jan. 25, 2007, after the angst-producing ordeal of assigning a half-dozen stories on grief. "I am utterly drained and sad."

But on March 14, she's riding high again because she has just received "the most divine reflexology session: forty-five minutes on just my feet. I've never felt such well-being even from a full-body massage."

Freed has been doing hard time in the fast lane of the beauty biz for 13 years now. Is she burned out? Has she grown jaded? Absolutely not.

"My heart leaps," she writes, "at the sight of more shopping bags to be explored."