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2008-07-30 Afghanistan
StrategyPage Afghanistan: The Real Enemy Stays In The Shadows
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Posted by ed 2008-07-30 09:54|| || Front Page|| [1 views ]  Top

#1 What I said years ago:

Go after the opium production. Buy off the farmers with cash (pay them what they would make off opium to instead grow food), burn ALL the poppy crops in place (defoliate). Anyone fighting, in addition to getting the crops and farm demolished, will get their ground seeded with defoliants that will prevent growth of any crop for years.

Basically lay down the law and let them know if they resist, they will die.

As for the politicians who are owned by the drug lords? Have them tried quickly and promptly executed by the clean ones.
Posted by OldSpook 2008-07-30 12:28||   2008-07-30 12:28|| Front Page Top

#2 As for the politicians who are owned by the drug lords? Have them tried quickly and promptly executed by the clean ones.

OS, I doubt you could find ten non-corrupt politicians in all of Afghanistan, and those ten (if they exist) are targeted for replacement by bought men.

We rebuilt the Afghan government too quickly. We should STILL be occupying the country, and telling its citizens what to do. Afghanistan is a continuing cesspool of corruption, and it's going to take ten years or more to develop a government that would be even mildly responsible. In the meantime, a couple of ARCLIGHT strikes down through the poppy fields would get the attention of the growers.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2008-07-30 14:52|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2008-07-30 14:52|| Front Page Top

#3 So where do you find an Afghan equal to Presidente Uribe? Many of the rural population don't like being narco producers. They need leadership that has Uribe's q ualities, seems to me.
Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-07-30 18:12||   2008-07-30 18:12|| Front Page Top

#4 Should have implemented biomassfuel plants years ago to address two needs, those of traditional agrarian growers and some sort of domestic fuel production.
Posted by Procopius2k 2008-07-30 18:20||   2008-07-30 18:20|| Front Page Top

#5 I am sure there is a smut or virus in our inventory to cause some fatal plant disease in poppies.
I doubt there is the political will in Washington to ever use such a weapon. The Sierra Club types and the organized crime types both having the potential of being very upset.
Posted by 3dc 2008-07-30 19:21||   2008-07-30 19:21|| Front Page Top

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