Are US Troops In Afghanistan

Dealers/ Manufacturers/ Regional/ Info Trash
1

being ordered to provide security for farmers while they harvest their opium crops?

They were talking about this on talk radio today but I tuned in at the very end of the discussion.

I spoke to some soldiers a few years back about why Afghanistan was still the #1 exporter of opium after several years of coalition forces being deployed there. I was advised that position was not to eradicate the crops as to not alienate the population, including the VIP/politicos that owned some of the crops.

While not happy with that position I can understand doing things in stages, but to me it is a total different thing to have troops safeguarding the crops.

Anyone have any info on this?

2

Go to PBS.com and watch some of the shows, I think this one covers it but I may be wrong.

http://video.pbs.org/video/994541751/

They have four episodes of Frontline that cover Afganistan. Long story short, they currently are not going after the drugs, as far as protecting them I don’t know.

3

From what I understand, we don’t go after the growers, but wait till the middle man comes and packs the junk out then get his ass

4

US Troops do not go after the crops, but they’re not guarding them, either.

5

DEA in Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSUGY8qV6Jc

A nice chunk of that drug money directly supports the taliban. Although it isn’t the taliban’s primary income, any disruption we can cause to the influx of funds is a good thing I think.

6

Don’t we get our opium from Afghanistan?

Not all opium is used illegally guys, it is a medicine/pain killer after all.

Anyone that has had their wisdom teeth removed knows.

7

Most of our opiate based drugs are produced synthetically IE they are lab created. We aren’t putting Afghanistan poppies in our prescriptions.

8

Actually, most of the world’s legal opium is raised in Southern France.

The opium in Afghanistan goes mainly to Russia, China and Southeastern Europe.

Poppy eradication had worked so well at driving up the price of opium, that from 2005 when the program started to 2008, there was a huge OVERPRODUCTION of poppy in Afghanistan. During the 2009 growing season, we found 100s of tons of opium in caches from the year before. Opium that the drug-lords couldn’t give away.

Eradication is like trying to bail all the salt-water out of the ocean with a teaspoon. It’s stupid, doesn’t work, and just pisses off a bunch of people we’d rather not piss off.

One of the reasons Helmand province is such a good place to grow opium poppy in the first place, is that in the 1960s, the do-gooders at USAID built huge western-style irrigation systems feeding off the Helmand river. Unfortunately, because the folks at USAID are do-gooding idiots, the western-style irrigation systems poisoned the ground there with salt so that only crops like poppy and pomegranate can grow productively. Wheat will “kind of sort of” grow, but opium stores and travels well.

The Taliban initially banned poppy production during their reign, but is now supporting it, in league with the drug-lords, who were NOT Taliban, until we drove them into the Taliban’s arms. One of Karzai’s brother is one of the non-Taliban drug-lords, btw. Now, Taliban use opium profits to fund operations plus they get poppy grower support for giving crop insurance in return for poppy growers fighting American and ISAF troops.

Having done the poppy erad/counter narc thing in Afghanistan, I think it is a waste of time. Interdiction is the only thing we should be involved in, and we should involve the most interested parties, i.e. the Chinese and Russians, into backing those efforts.

9

According to those on the ground here that I have spoken with in one of the agencies 90% of the world opium supply comes from Afghanistan. It usually passes to Europe and eventually ends up the states. Currently they are not being allowed to target the farmers, but instead they are going after the middle men and hopefully the bigger fish who are pushing it out.

I say destroy all of it.

10

If we are guarding it(which I don’t believe), we are doing a poor job. Just today or yesterday there was an article in the paper regarding the disease that is expected to kill off half or more of the poppy crop in Afghanistan. The farmers and drug lords claim the disease is a CIA born plot to wipe out the poppy.

11

Not the way I would do it.

Regarding the guarding, they (talk radio) were not saying that US troops are standing a 24 hour watch on the stuff. I had heard somewhere else that the Taliban or other drug lords wait until the crop has either been harvested or is in the process of being harvested and then jack it from the farmers. They were saying that US troops were providing a security detail to keep the crop from getting jacked and that they were coming under fire while carrying this out.

12

That’s the UNODC number.

Good luck “destroying all of it”. There are certain physical impossibilities in play here. Poppy eradication is difficult, and each stage of growth requires different techniques.

How would you do it, hero? Tell us all about YOUR experience eradicating poppy?

Well, it is talk radio. They MUST be right. This sounds like recyclement of another story from a year ago where US soldiers were paying farmers for damage done to their poppy crop.

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Why half ass?

Scorched earth. Problem solved

14

“Scorched earth” in Afghanistan would result in “Scorched earth” in the US within your lifetime.

We thrive as a nation because we are, more or less, a respecter of the international system.

The US is strong enough that “going Milosovic” on Afghanistan would frighten the rest of the world into nuking our ass. We are simply too strong of a nation to be allowed to be a “Mad Dog”.

15

There is a huge difference between burning the opium industry to the ground and ethnic cleansing.

When the USA half asses, we lose.

We do our best work, victorious work, when we play to win.

16

Please explain all of the above.

Starting with how you “burn the opium industry to the ground”.

“Playing to win” in a counterinsurgency involves being willing to take US casualties to protect Afghan civilians. Are you willing to do that?

Seriously, I would take the place in Bing West’s “The Village” in Afghanistan. As one of his Corporals. How many American soldiers do you know, right now, who would do that?

17

I don’t have any experience eradicating poppy, but here is what should be done.

After withdrawing all US troops declare Afghanistan and Columbia narco states and that they are a clear and present danger to the world. Give them 30 days to take care of it on their own. If not taken care of in that time then carpet bomb both countries off the face of the planet.

18

Start by burning every ounce of it that we come across.

Burn it from the ground, burn it from the air. Just burn it.

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The libertarian in me has to ask why?

Replace Afghanistan with the US, and replace Heroin with Alcohol.
We have been thru this before and it didn’t work. When will we learn?

As a side note I don’t do drugs, other than caffiene, and alcohol. But as a huge advocate of personal responsibility, if somebody wants to get high on herion or crack then good for them. Making it illegal only makes it profitable, and that leads to all the other problems.

20

and what happens to the folks who have no part in the growing, selling, etc of the poppy? are they forced to leave or die? the old addage you can’t make an omlet without breaking a few eggs doesn’t work when you are suggesting to just carpet bomb innocent people off the face of the planet.

sounds like a new Nike slogan. Just Burn It.

and who would be responsible for this? dedicate more resources to burning all the poppys. resources that are already stretched thin in two different theaters.