The "spin" shifts.

Existence of the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force, which "will go after drug networks linked to the insurgency, interdict drug shipments, destroy heroin labs and identify and arrest their protectors in (the Afghan) government," was revealed in a recent report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

That the U.S. and NATO are targeting drug lords is well-known, but counter-insurgency warfare expert Thomas X. Hammes said the task force, its composition and methods are new.

"People have been thinking about how to solve this and for the first time we're starting to get the resources," Hammes, a retired U.S. Marine colonel, said from Washington.

The team, which has wide discretion to capture or kill suspected drug traffickers, was at the time of the report's publication "awaiting formal approval in Washington and London, but operations have been co-ordinated informally through what officers involved call 'goodwill' among British, U.S. and Australian personnel."

Canada's elite and highly secretive JTF-2 commandos have fought shoulder-to-shoulder with American and British special forces since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

The federal government rarely acknowledges the special forces operations, but Dan Dugas, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said the burgeoning drug war is not among Canada's priorities and "our focus includes such things as training the (Afghan National Army) and the (provincial reconstruction team)," which is in charge of redevelopment.

It is the latest step back for the Conservative government, which having initially embraced the war, has grown disillusioned and tired of the costly struggle.

Hammes said he was surprised to see Canadians were not involved, but suggested holding the fort in Kandahar for three years is more than enough reason to take a pass.

"The administration should be having parades down here for what you've done," said Hammes.

"The Bush administration never gave you the recognition you deserved."

The team fuses soldiers, intelligence officers and drug enforcement investigators, including American DEA members and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency.

The Senate report estimated that the Taliban reap as much as US $70 million per year from the opium trade, a much lower estimate than international observers.

"The new consensus among U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan that the war cannot be won without severing the links between the drug traffickers, insurgents and corrupt government officials began to get traction as the administration increased resources for the war," said the Aug. 10 study.

But there has been fundamental disagreement within NATO about adding a drug war on top of a brutal counter-insurgency conflict. Nations have disagreed about the size and scope of the military effort.

Last winter, the former NATO supreme commander, U.S. Gen. John Craddock, declared all drug traffickers in Afghanistan to be legitimate military targets - an order that other generals in the western alliance challenged as a violation of the laws of war. The rules of engagement were later modified to declare that only traffickers with bone fide links to the Taliban were fair game.

The rules being used by the troops are classified, but the Senate reports said: "The military places no restrictions on the use of force with these selected targets, which means they can be killed or captured on the battlefield; it does not, however, authorize targeted assassinations away from the battlefield."

The Pentagon has a list 367 "kill or capture targets," of which 50 apparently have connections to the Afghan drug trade, U.S. commanders told the Senate committee.

It is just the kind of ghostly, dirty war that would make Canadian politicians and the public squeamish. Beyond that, Canadian commanders and diplomats have another more imperative political reason to keep their distance.

The U.S. Senate committee report makes specific reference to the allegations that Ahmed Wali Karzai, half-brother of President Hamid Karzai, is heavily involved in the drug trade.

"Stories about him are legendary - how Afghan police and military commanders who seize drugs in southern Afghanistan are told by Ahmed Wali to return them to the traffickers, how he arranged the imprisonment of a DEA informant who had tipped the Americans to a drug-laden truck near Kabul, how his accusers often turn up dead," the committee said.

"No proof has surfaced, and he and President Karzai have denied the accusations."

The German magazine Stern recently reported that British special forces troops raided a Kandahar field apparently owned by Wali Karzai and turned up "several tonnes of opium."

Karzai vehemently denied the charges, claiming the field did not belong to him and the accusations were politically motivated to hurt his half-brother's re-election chances, just days before Afghans went to the polls.

As head of the provincial shura - or council - in Kandahar, Wali Karzai has regular dealings with Canadians.

But the U.S. report warned that American officials in Kabul have made it clear there is no longer "a red line on anybody for corruption."

The new task force will work in conjunction with another specialized team tucked away at Bagram Airfield, near Kabul.

The Afghan Threat Finance Cell, with an anticipated staff of 60, will attempt to disrupt the financial networks of the traffickers as well as collect information "on senior Afghan government officials suspected of corruption."