Article

2009-08-02 Afghanistan

Tensions grow in Afghanistan as villagers get rid of opium, fall into poverty

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Posted by tipper 2009-08-02 14:13|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 It is impossible to grow commodity grains profitably using manual labor. You can not till/plant/cultivate/harvest enough grain by hand to get above subsistence farming. If they want to shift Afghanistan away from opium, they are going to need mechanized farming. They will need tractors, combines, trucks, elevators, railroads, irrigation, and the infrastructure on which those things move.

Forcing them to wheat right now is putting the cart before the horse. They need grain elevators, roads, bridges, trucks, tractors, plows, harvesters, and the infrastructure and knowledge to keep all that stuff repaired.

We would be better off to allow them to continue growing the opium while the infrastructure to support other things is being put into place. To do otherwise is sort of a "let them eat cake" attitude.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-08-02 14:30|| 2009-08-02 14:30|| Front Page Top

#2 Give 'em all $4500 USD for turning in their broken carts as part of BO's cash-for-clunkers. Good gosh we flushing away money atmost anything here. What's another $100M in poppy-land.

Posted by anymouse">anymouse 2009-08-02 14:45|| http://theworldsworstblog-really.blogspot.com/]">[http://theworldsworstblog-really.blogspot.com/] 2009-08-02 14:45|| Front Page Top

#3 The proper take on the cash for clunkers thing would be to execute junkies. That'll go over real well in the west. Especially in big, blue voter cities. "You want to kill all our warm, fluffy junkies!?! Sob. Wail..."

Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek 2009-08-02 15:10|| 2009-08-02 15:10|| Front Page Top

#4 They could bring back the orchards and vineyards the Taliban destroyed because booze could be made from grapes and Fruit was tasty so it must be against Allan.

Posted by 3dc 2009-08-02 15:11|| 2009-08-02 15:11|| Front Page Top

#5 Besides, that far from the sea they need the opium to dream of eating mermaids.

Posted by 3dc 2009-08-02 15:12|| 2009-08-02 15:12|| Front Page Top

#6 tastes like chicken?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-08-02 15:24|| 2009-08-02 15:24|| Front Page Top

#7 So long as Taliban are getting the profits from that opium to buy weapons those people are not going to get above subsistence level anyway. Then the Talibunnies will use that money to kill our guys. Burn that opium (just don't burn it in your pipe).

Posted by Abu Uluque 2009-08-02 16:02|| 2009-08-02 16:02|| Front Page Top

#8 When the US sends free food to Afghanistan, then local grain prices will be depressed. Quit destabilizing the market with free goodies and prices will settle to provide a livelihood for farmers.

Posted by ed 2009-08-02 16:35|| 2009-08-02 16:35|| Front Page Top

#9 O woe, woe! Woe is me!

The fault lies with promises made by the Afghan government and not kept by the Afghan government. Also the unrealistic expectations of the Afghan villagers that the Americans would magically bring them up to First World living standards; we saw the same complaints in Iraq.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2009-08-02 19:51|| 2009-08-02 19:51|| Front Page Top

#10 If they have been growing opium there for several centuries, what difference is a few years going to make?

Posted by crosspatch 2009-08-02 22:10|| 2009-08-02 22:10|| Front Page Top

#11 WE should just buy it from them instead of letting it go to the Taliban.

Besides, Obama is going to need all that opium to use in all the morphine pumps we are going to be giving out with Obamacare.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-08-02 22:12|| 2009-08-02 22:12|| Front Page Top

#12 TW, failure to maintain status quo is a completely different beast from failure to attain first world standards of living. The Afghans had plenty under the opium economy; without opium they have little and many will almost certainly starve or freeze this winter. Writing it off to empty promises from the Afghan (or United States) government, or unrealistic hopes of the unwashed peasants, is simply facile.

Here's a challenge for the neocons in the audience. Name one Afghan province that does NOT have a 95% drop in opium crop, and provide a valid reason for it not forfeiting opium profits BESIDES it still being completely under Taliban control.

Posted by Clyde Cherenter5727 2009-08-02 22:13|| 2009-08-02 22:13|| Front Page Top

#13 Clyde Cherenter5727, we're going through something similar to what those Afghan villagers are going through, out here in the great, wide Western world. When there is a changeover in the economy, there is a period of severe pain when people lose spending power, jobs, businesses, and savings. I imagine a good many Rantburgers, most of them not in the least bit facile or neo-cons (whatever it is you think neo-con means), can speak directly to that pain. As for the Afghanis, they are going to have to go through the pain of giving up the opium trade sooner or later. It's probably better now, when they aren't competing with the rest of the Opium Belt to succeed in the changeover -- kind of like being in the first round of lay-offs than the last round.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-08-02 23:33|| 2009-08-02 23:33|| Front Page Top

#14 "neocon" is short for neo-conservative which is basically classical liberalism or are for the individual having more liberty. Neo-liberals are classical conservatives and want to have the state have more authority over the people.

Wind things back a couple of hundred years and it would be today's Republicans that would be fighting against taxation and for liberty while it would be today's Democrats what would be increasing taxes and regulating everything under the sun growing the power of the government ever larger.

Neoconservative is often use a pejorative by people who don't really know what it means.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-08-02 23:51|| 2009-08-02 23:51|| Front Page Top

#15 "Neoconservative is often use a pejorative"

Meant: Neoconservative is often used as a pejorative

Posted by crosspatch 2009-08-02 23:52|| 2009-08-02 23:52|| Front Page Top

23:52 crosspatch
23:51 JosephMendiola
23:51 crosspatch
23:46 anymouse
23:45 OldSpook
23:39 OldSpook
23:36 JosephMendiola
23:33 trailing wife
23:29 notascrename
23:19 JosephMendiola
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22:35 Anonymoose
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22:29 trailing wife
22:29 Injun Grinesing9686
22:26 trailing wife
22:25 Anonymoose
22:19 Barbara Skolaut
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22:12 crosspatch
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21:55 Eric Jablow