Mission Accomplished!
make it rain you nappy headed ho's
Props to p0157 for a fine story -- I detect a bit of media sleight of hand in the numbers however. The MSNB link that describes Helmand province compares opium production in 2000 to now. Why not 2001 the last year the Taliban was in power?
Well maybe because according to the UN, by Feb, 2001 the Taliban had wiped out opium production in Afghanistan. So the hidden news here is that the Taliban did in a couple years what the USA with all its drug war money and associated violence failed to do over decades.
Another issue is that if 92% of any resource is coming from any one place, then you can have major success interdicting that commodity by cutting off logistic routes. Its not like cocaine (for example) where Colombia has little control over FARC territories. Afghanistan's armed forces is pretty much the US/West armed forces. Its pretty clear (implicitly) that the West has made a strategic decision to leave the province alone and not let mission creep (memories of Mogadishu?) lead to the killing of more troops. If nothing else -- this absolutely proves that the Bush Doctrine (going after the funding sources of terrorism) is dead. With all those unmanned drones it should be a simple enough matter to a) identify the poppy fields and b) go there with flame throwers.
Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.
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stick, meet carrot
Fri Jul 06, 2007 at 02:51:46 PM EST
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With all those unmanned drones it should be a simple enough matter to a) identify the poppy fields and b) go there with flame throwers.
With that kind of lever, why not provide some incentive too? Say, legitimize poppy production and trade for pharmaceutical purposes. The farmers who play nice, by channeling the product into medicine and tax revenue into the new Afghanistan government, get good incomes and healthy crops. The drug runners get fields of flames, impoverishment, and anti-Taliban troops breathing down their necks.
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Re: stick, meet carrot
Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 10:23:36 AM EST
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There has got to be some reason why that won't work. I mean, I've seen that suggested countless times. Why not turn that region of Afghanistan into a supplier for western pharma corps? Hell, everybody loves outsourcing manufacturing for cheap labor. It seems like a complete no brainer. Cheap drugs for us, and legal status for the farmers which takes away their support for the Taliban.
I'm thinking logistics or stupidity. Which do you think?
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I am not an economist
Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 11:49:30 AM EST
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My guess is cost/benefit ratio. No matter how much legal opium production pays, I'm pretty sure the illegal stuff pays more. Then you might have a number of farmers who want to produce opium legally, but there's a bunch bearded, wild-eyed fanatics with a Kalashnikovs pointing at their heads.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
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Re: I am not an economist
Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 12:06:33 PM EST
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If they legalize production I am guessing prices would drop dramatically, but probably still bring in more than average day to day life in Afghanistan.
Also, couldn't the pharmaceutical companies who would be saving scads of cash on the deal spend some of the savings to hire local security guards or Blackwater types to discourage the Taliban shenanigans? Hell, with the amount of money they'd make they could probably hire out the ex-Taliban to do the guarding of the poppies. Wasn't it in Afghanistan that the coalition actually took more land by simply bribing warlords to switch alliances rather than bombing? Give everybody involved a perfect local cottage industry that they would be foolish to trash and suddenly I bet there would be a whole lot more working together.
Hell, if that doesn't work just do what the Brits did to the Chinese back in the day and get all the locals hooked on the crap.
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Old Carrots?
Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 12:52:10 PM EST
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Sounds like a great idea, and hasn't it already worked in Turkey? Of course, law and order ain't the same in Afghanistan as it is elsewhere, but the fundamental idea sounds good.
My guess is that it's an unofficial payoff for some of the Northern Alliance leaders, since "incompetence" is off the table :)
Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras
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Re: Old Carrots?
Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 08:15:26 PM EST
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Yep. Turkey was the example I had in mind.
