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Washington DC 3/17/05 - In a hearing of the House Committee on
International Relations today, agency officials from the State
Dept., Army and Drug Enforcement Agency gave unconvincing testimony
before largely vacant seats of committee members. The hearing
was on Counter-Narcotics on the same day as hearings were held
on the other side of the same building for steroid use in baseball.
Most of the testimony was from prepared statements stuffed with
old history and vague statistics that indicated progress by various
government agencies in rolling back rampant opium production
in Afghanistan.
Under sharp questioning by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) that impression
seemed to come apart as government witnesses claimed to forget
important details of counter-narcotics strategies and offer straw
man arguments and answers to questions never asked. It turned
out to be more theatrical testimony than the baseball hearing.
 We, at Jezail, have seen this kind of
political theater many times before. Performances like that of
then-Ambassador Robin Raphel stating before committee that
"the Taliban is a purely indigenous Afghan phenomenon",
was a claim that strained credulity to the breaking point at
the time.
It can be said that the more things change, the more they
stay the same in Washington. Under questioning by Congresswoman
Diane E.
Watson, (D Calif.), government witnesses painted a picture
of a half-full glass rather than an abject failure as they stood
before a bar graph depicting the sharp rise in opium production
over some 6 years. Congresswoman Watson noted that there were
few in attendance at the hearing because there were simultaneous
hearings being conducted to look into steroid abuse by professional
baseball players.
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