I know NATO was complicit in the Afghan opium trade because I was there, guarding opium harvesting on Afghan government land besides NATO’s main operating base in Helmand. British forces favoured one Helmand drugs clan over another, irrigating poppy fields and protecting opium harvesting on Afghan government land by Camp Bastion. On the same day we destroyed poor farmers poppy fields 15km away for a compliant media to report as ‘mission accomplished’.