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| Afghanistan | |
| Afghan VP: 'Britain is losing the Afghan drug war' | |
| 2007-09-02 | |
| Britain's multimillion-pound attempt to battle the drug trade in southern Afghanistan has been a failure, the country's first vice-president has claimed. Ahmad Zia Massoud has taken the unprecedented step of speaking publicly about his country's drugs problem in an exclusive article for The Sunday Telegraph, warning that despite Britain's efforts, the poppies have spread "like a cancer". Afghanistan's opium harvest has more than doubled in the past two years and in a report last week, the United Nations said it expected production to hit a "frighteningly high" 8,200 tonnes this year, an increase of 34 per cent on last year. Particularly embarrassing for Britain was the figure from Helmand province, where output jumped by 48 per cent.
Britain has spent £208 million over the past three years on counter-narcotic operations but Mr Massoud argues that the failure to shut down the opium trade amounts to a victory for the Taliban. "The opium directly supports those killing Afghan and international troops," he writes. "I believe that failing to achieve a substantial reduction this year in the opium crop will be equivalent to supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan." In contrast to the British authorities and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, he said that spraying of the poppy crop was needed to break the deadlock in the south. British military commanders are reluctant to get involved with anti-drug operations, fearing that it would drive farmers into the arms of the Taliban. | |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #10 And an automatic long prison sentence for anyone caught selling drugs/booze to children. Agreed, Barbara, and also agreed that anyone receiving government sponsored recreational drugs is immediately disqualified for welfare and food stamps. If the government product was distributed free of charge, there would also have to be stiff penalties for all resale as well. That would choke off any secondhand flow towards welfare and food stamp recipients. Odd as it sounds, a user might have to undergo drug testing to verify that they had consumed their government allocation. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-02 21:09 |
| #9 Any legalization of presently illegal drugs must comed with the provision that drug addicts (I'd add alcoholics in there too) DO NOT GET ANY SUPPORT FROM MY TAX DOLLARS. If you want to screw your life up, fine by me, but I shouldn't have my hard-earned dollars confiscated from my by the gummint and handed over to you to pay for a room, food, or anything else. You wanna toke up/snort up/shoot up/stay drunk, knock yourself out, but I shouldn't have to pay to support your sorry ass. I'd offer gov't-sponsored rehab ONCE, if that. Charities are better able to handle that anyway. You wanna stay high/drunk, then sleep in the gutter for all I care. Cause, meet effect. You commit a crime to get your fix, you get free room and board at the local jail/prison. If the Lefties and the do-gooders think you need to be "helped," they can pay out of their own pockets to Harsh? Maybe. Real-life sensible way to handle this shit? Yewbetcha. And an automatic long prison sentence for anyone caught selling drugs/booze to children. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-09-02 20:35 |
| #8 I agree with Sea. Criminalization of alchohol gave a huge boost to the Mafia. Legal tobacco maintains a reasonable control on traffic of the product (until the taxes become too high.) Apply the same logic to pot, cocaine and heroin. Buy the product direct from the growers and distribute it free to the users - cut out all the middle-man profit. If people want to kill themselves, let it be their problem and not mine. As a humanitarian gesture, offer meaningful help to addicts who actually want to quit. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-09-02 20:21 |
| #7 Afghan VP: 'Britain is losing the Afghan drug war' Who would know better than a central facilitator? We need a move in the US Congress to express No Confidence in Karzai and his palace cronies. This to be accompanied by a demand that Afghanistn's constitution be rewritten so as to exclude all references regarding shari'a law. Any refusal to do so should be met with the imposition of a brutal military dictatorship. Legalizing, regulating and taxing the demand end of the heroin supply chain would be more effective. Far too logical, Sea. You also disregard how many major global players would no longer get billions of dollars in vig related to heroin trafficking. They would be very displeased. Who do you think drives all the opposition to legalization of any sort? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-02 17:23 |
| #6 It's simple. Shoot the farmers. They are not innocent peasants. They are the enemy. They know what they are doing. Forget their hearts and minds. Just shoot them. Look, we conquered the country and we did it for the simple reason that they attacked us first. But just because you conquer a country doesn't mean you have to rebuild it or win over the people. You don't have to be nice. The primary objective is to make sure they don't attack us again. When you are the conquerer they live and die at your discretion. Do what needs to be done or else pack up and go home. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 2007-09-02 16:39 |
| #5 Besides the Afghani economic reliance on the drug trade, I suspect the European NATO troops also have little interest in curbing the profits that pour through the banks and prop up the global economy. Targeting the local farmers is counterproductive and no one is really interested in taking on the real powerbrokers profitting from terror financing. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2007-09-02 11:57 |
| #4 Legalizing, regulating and taxing the demand end of the heroin supply chain would be more effective. /no I don't want a nation of heroin junkies but we already have one. several nations, actually. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2007-09-02 11:53 |
| #3 Round_Up, that's so inside the box. Agent Grape would be more effective. A long term air campaign utilizing the BLEU30x2 cluster munition will keep the opium farmers pinned in their hutments all day. For maximum effect it should be parachuted in unshielded from the atmosphere, arriving cold. General Nitetrian has approved the go ahead for Project Byrds_Alive Gut Ripper. |
| Posted by: Throper Ghibelline9098 2007-09-02 05:34 |
| #2 Eradication efforts - complete with assistance to farmers who agree to alter crops - are going well elsewhere. I was around when US troops were prohibited from making direct attacks on Viet villages, because of the hearts-and-minds policy. Watch "Rescue Dawn" for an accurate account of how heavy bombing can pacify an area and demoralize an enemy. Allowing a people to get away with harborage, is a recipe for massive enemy recruitment. Where drugs are involved, the enemy will hardly choke on prosperity. We need a move in the US Congress to express No Confidence in Karzai and his palace cronies. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-09-02 01:57 |
| #1 Do you have any idea what size carrot it will take to counter the carrot that opium trade has to offer? The carrot idea is ludicrous. Now let's talk about stick. How much Roundup can you buy for a few million dollars? Spray the crops just before they harvest it and watch the commotion. It won't be long before feeding their jihadi families will take precedence. |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-09-02 01:57 |