This is just another agenda-pushing MSM PoS.
Everyone knows NATO and the West invaded to get the opium flowing again -- among other reasons.
"US turns blind eye to opium; Fears alienating Afghans on turf Taliban once held" by Rod Nordland, New York Times | March 21, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.
From General Stanley A. McChrystal on down, the military’s position is clear: “US forces no longer eradicate,’’ as one NATO official put it. Opium is the main livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the farmers in Marja, which was seized from Taliban rebels in a major offensive last month. American Marines occupying the area are under orders to leave the farmers’ fields alone.
They already were: WHAT OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR IN AFGHANISTAN
Related:
Also see: Drug Money Saving Banks
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
“Marja is a special case right now,’’ said Commander Jeffrey Eggers, a member of the general’s Strategic Advisory Group, his top advisory body. “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.’’
They are really unbelievable.
I'm SO SICK of INSULTING SHIT from the U.S. military and the MSM.
Yeah, we don't trample on people's livelihoods, we just slap sanctions on anyone we don't like.
UN drug officials agree with the Americans, though they acknowledge the conundrum. Pictures of NATO and other allied soldiers “walking next to the opium fields won’t go well with domestic audiences, but the approach of postponing eradicating in this particular case is a sensible one,’’ said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, who is in charge of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime here.
We are NOT FOOLED ANYMORE, fucker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Afghan officials, however, are divided. Though some support the American position, others, citing a constitutional ban on opium cultivation, want to plow the fields under before the harvest, which has already begun in parts of Helmand province.
And if the U.S. were really serious about the problem that is what they would do. They have no problem having bombs plow up fields.
Catching on now, readers?
“How can we allow the world to see lawful forces in charge of Marja next to fields full of opium, which one way or another will be harvested and turned into a poison that kills people all over the world?’’ said Zulmai Afzali, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Counternarcotics.
“The Taliban are the ones who profit from opium, so you are letting your enemy get financed by this so he can turn around and kill you back,’’ he added, referring to how the Taliban squeeze farmers for money to run their operations.
Doesn't seem to be that big a deal.
"Senior Obama administration officials say some of [money] may be going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage.... “willful blindness’’ on the part of a US military that “likes having its trucks showing up and doesn’t want to get into the details of how they got there.’’"
Just like the AmeriKan MSM.
Gee, what a GREAT WAY to keep an OCCUPATION and WAR going, huh?
The argument may strike some as a jarring reversal of early tensions with Afghan officials, some of whom resisted all-out American pressure to stop opium production in the years right after the 2001 invasion.
Have you had enough of the bullshit yet?
Though the US government’s official position is still to support opium crop eradication in general, some American civilian officials say the internal debate over Marja is far from over within parts of the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
At the heart of the debate with Afghan officials is an important question of cause-and-effect: Is poor security in Marja the reason there is so much opium, or is so much opium the reason there has been poor security?
Chicken or the egg, huh?
Pfffft!
