The U.S. Congress is calling on U.S. government entities in Afghanistan to assume a larger counternarcotics role in fighting opium cultivation and trafficking, but the U.S. military is reluctant to add the job to an already full plate, the Christian Science Monitor reported June 14.

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, and the illegal drug trade is known to fund the Taliban and other insurgents in the country. A $6.4-billion aid and reconstruction package passed by the House of Representatives calls on the U.S. military to provide logistical support to 150 DEA agents working in Afghanistan, and some in Congress want soldiers to take a more direct role in destroying opium crops and arresting traffickers.

"It is the drug trade that allows our enemies in Afghanistan to purchase the weapons with which they kill our soldiers and corrupt the Afghan government," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

But Christopher Langton, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said involving the U.S. military in fighting drugs could be counterproductive. "A large part of the insurgency's successful propaganda campaign dwells on the fact that the international community is in Afghanistan in the guise of invaders and occupiers," he said. "If you allow us, the so-called invaders and occupiers, to ravage an Afghan farmer's crop, you just reinforce that message."

The White House opposes the House bill, and Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a respected member of the Armed Services Committee, is skeptical about expanding the military's role. "I don't want to see the American GIs tasked as the principal persons that have got to go in and clean up this situation," Warner said, to which Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute replied at a recent hearing, "That's right. This is fundamentally a law-enforcement and governance role, not a military role."