Science Forums 2

[Michaelangelica]

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a walled compound outside Kabul, two members of Colombia’s counternarcotics police force are trying to teach raw Afghan recruits how to wage close-quarters combat.
. . .
Poppy growing is endemic in the countryside, and Afghanistan now produces 92 percent of the world’s opium. But until recently, American officials acknowledge, fighting drugs was considered a distraction from fighting terrorists.

Poppy Fields Are Now a Front Line in Afghan War - New York Times

92% ?
Doesn't sound like anyone is trying too hard.
Who does it fund the Taliban or the CIA?
Hasn't someone heard of Round-Up?
The Colombians teaching them!?
This is a good idea?!

Growing Cannabis in Afghanistan

While Balkh Province in Afghanistan has been successful in eradicating opium poppy cultivation, many farmers have merely switched to another illicit crop: cannabis.

Afghanistan News - Breaking World Afghanistan News - The New York Times
(Above is a good link to links in the NY Times about Afghanistan.)A ready market with all the troops there?

the long-term cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could head into the vicinity of $3.5 trillion. The vast majority of those expenses would be for Iraq.

Priorities don’t get much more twisted. A country that can’t find the money to provide health coverage for its children, or to rebuild the city of New Orleans, or to create a first-class public school system, is flushing whole generations worth of cash into the bottomless pit of a failed and endless war.
. . .
Youngsters who were just starting high school when the U.S. invaded Iraq are in college now. Their children, yet unborn, will be called on to fork over tax money to continue paying for the war.

Seriously. How long do we want this madness to last?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/op...=1&oref=slogin

Annual defence budget USA 3/4 of a trillion a year.

WASHINGTON — Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to American and alliance officials.
. . .
Unlike the administration’s sweeping review of Iraq policy a year ago, which was announced with great fanfare and ultimately resulted in a large increase in troops, the American reviews of the Afghan strategy have not been announced and are not expected to result in a similar infusion of combat forces, mostly because there are no American troops readily available.
. . .
“I have a real concern that given our preoccupation in Iraq, we’ve not devoted sufficient troops and funding to Afghanistan to ensure success in that mission,” Mr. Skelton said. “Afghanistan has been the forgotten war.”
. . .
The NATO-led security assistance mission in Afghanistan has about 40,000 troops; of those, 14,000 are American. Separately, the United States military has 12,000 other troops in Afghanistan conducting specialized counter-terrorism missions.
. . .
“The mission in Afghanistan has been suffering from neglect on all sides,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/wa.../16afghan.html