The war in Afghanistan has opened the floodgates for the production and distribution of heroin. Those who are flourishing in that war-torn country are the fanatical insurgents and the smugglers who traffic in heroin. For half a decade, more than 90 percent of the world’s source of illegal opium and heroin has sprung from the fields of Afghanistan.

It can be a lucrative business for those at the top of the pyramid. The going rate for a kilo of heroin in Afghanistan is approximately $2,500. When transported across the border to Tajikistan, the same shipment can bring $5,000, and in Moscow, $100,000. That’s quite an incentive to continue to find ways to grow poppies and produce heroin for the marketplace.

It has proven to be a boon for the Taliban whose leaders demand protection money for the drug shipments and the chemicals needed to refine the heroin for street sales. These "protectors” can earn upwards of $75 million yearly for their services.

President Obama has been bombarded with questions and complaints surrounding his indecisiveness in sending troops to Afghanistan. The question resonates, "Why send troops into a situation where American soldiers become baby sitters for drug lords?” Until the poppy fields are destroyed, it is insane to send more troops. Just who would they be defending? The dope dealers? Can you imagine the U.S. government protecting the drug dealers in America?

Another boon in the drug trade is the ability to purchase weapons whose trade can net the trader as much as $5,000 each month, great riches in a country where the median income is approximately $800 per year or about $77 per month. The weapon of choice is the Russian Kalashnikov which sells for about $400 on the black market. The highly-prized new version of the famed weapon, the Kalakov sells for $1,100. It is most desirable because it is smaller, and its bullets will pierce body armor, a plus among the Taliban and al-Qaeda who are targeting American troops.

A weapons trader confirmed that the war in the southern part of Afghanistan is very good for business. So good in fact that a multitude smugglers can make a very lucrative living off the profits.

The Afghan police tend to be ineffective at halting the opium and heroin trade, and indulge in the activity themselves. They, too, act as "protectors” and charge exorbitant rates for their so-called security.

Despite the fact that I am a Texan and a conservative Republican, I was outraged that President George Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq. I wrote a book, Beyond Iraq, The Next Move, because the solution seemed to me to be quite simple: Since we had controlled Iraqi airspace for ten years, I believe all we had to do was close the Syrian border to prevent Saddam Hussein from smuggling through Syria. Had we done that, we would have had him caged like a canary.

It appears that President Obama is making an even bigger mistake by sending our brave young men and women into harm’s way to fight an enemy he refuses to define as an enemy. He cannot say the words "radical Islam” or "terrorist.” He prefers to call them militants and insurgents.

The war is being lost because of a lack of moral clarity. I discovered that when I confronted Hillary Clinton in The Hague at the Afghan summit. She declared that the administration would work with the 50 percent of the Taliban who are "moderates.” These are the same "moderates” whose beliefs and actions were responsible for such heinous crimes as the beheading of Daniel Pearl, South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal. These are the same "moderates” responsible for beating women, burning schools, throwing acid in the faces of the women who dared defy their dictates.

This is the atmosphere into which we have sent American troops; a no-win situation where men and women of the United States military are forced to protect the very people who peddle their deadly wares across the ocean and onto the streets in America. The war in Afghanistan cannot be won until the oxygen that fuels and feeds the fires of terrorism is shut off.