Afghanistan and global heroin

[LaurieAG]

Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record - washingtonpost.com

Mission accomplished!

[sanctus]

Well, seems it was not only about petrol...

[LaurieAG]

Originally Posted by sanctus

Well, seems it was not only about petrol...

Yes and No, it could just be a (particularly digusting and reprehensible) side effect of oil based 'tunnel vision'.

[Buffy]

Its not surprising though: its all about letting the capitalist forces have the freedom to innovate, and look at all those K Street heroin lobbyists!

Besides, what *else* is Afghanistan going to export? Oriental Rugs? Rocks? Or do they have to go back to exporting terrorists? Without a huge infusion of investment to get them into manufacturing, those are the only alternatives. The folks responsible for managing the US' support of the country must have known this unless they were complete morons and if so, their bosses at the very least would have to be claiming that "no one could have forseen" that electronics manufacturers would not start pouring money into the country to start assembling disk drives...

Five years of being greeted as liberators,
Buffy

[LaurieAG]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Its not surprising though: its all about letting the capitalist forces have the freedom to innovate, and look at all those K Street heroin lobbyists!
Buffy

Hello Buffy,

I always thought that the CIA giving the Afghan Warlords US$70 million to help oust the Taliban was a bit rich. Somehow it isn't very convincing when they claim that the Taliban is responsible for the poppy growing considering that the Taliban reduced the crop to 150 tons, just before the invasion, and now it stands at around 5,000 tons per annum.

Around 20 years ago I worked as a volunteer counsellor for a drug referral center. People who exploit this type of drug of dependence are the biggest terrorist threat to this planet. If GWB actually wanted to prevent this type of reverse (if not utter capitulation) in the war on drugs he would have sent the rest of the US troops to Afghanistan instead of invading Iraq on spurious grounds.

Maybe he could gain some kudos (or at least bring him back up to zero on the scale) by relocating the US occupation of Iraq back to Afghanistan and finishing the war on drugs (i.e. one win and one loss instead of two losses).

It'd be a pity if his own party had to pull him into line by deserting him, but what can you do with a loco cowboy?