How goes the war on Afghan's Poppy fields ??

Here are two very interesting articles that I have found on the Poppy fields of Afghanistan . When these articles are placed side by side one has to give there head a shake .



Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001 8:19 p.m. EST
U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer.

A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year.

"We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields," said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier -- a sea of blood-red poppies.

www.opioids.com...


U.S. Marines protect Afghan’s poppy fields

Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Last Crusade
Hey, guys, don’t pick the poppies.

That’s the order from the Obama Administration to the 4,000 Marines presently engaged in Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Taliban infested Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs. The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.

The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies - the crop used to make heroin.

www.canadafreepress.com...

I can't believe that no one out there finds this interesting enough to post there 2 cents ???


Dare I ask again , what do you all think of this ?

Richard Holbrooke, the administration's coordinator of Afghanistan policy, said this month that eradicating the opium poppy fields is "wasteful and ineffective" and has been "pushing farmers into the Taliban's hands" because it destroys farmers' livelihoods and leaves them with few alternatives.

Barnett Rubin, a New York University professor and Holbrooke adviser, told Congress last year that eradication usually fuels the Taliban-led insurgency.

However, the white paper on Afghanistan released Friday by the White House says the new strategy will spend more on "crop substitution and alternative livelihood programs" while continuing the practice of "targeting those who grow the poppy."

Holbrooke said after the release of the Afghanistan strategy that "you can't eliminate the whole eradication program. But you've got to put more emphasis on agricultural job creation."

President Bush proposed chemical spraying to kill poppy fields, but the Afghan government and European countries resisted that step as too harsh.

www.usatoday.com...

Got to win the hearts and minds.

Peace

So we turn them to crime in steed ?

Funny how the Taliban was able to deal with the fields without creating freedom fighters yet the U.S can't ?

Also a bit strange to think that these newly created freedom fighters would join a side , the Taliban , that wiped out there crop prior .

Are we not there to help the Afghans develop there nation , ie. schools , stability , oil lines and the world bank ? It would seem to me that pushing the farmers to a world of crime can't help there nation as so stated in the comments by Richard Holbrooke .

Also worth mentioning , Heroin is a very expensive drug and you can bet that these farmers are receiving a small fraction of a fraction of the true " value " of the product that they are growing . These dirt poor farmers are being taken advantage of in IMHO .

It would also seem to me that the persons protecting the crops just may have more of an interest in these crops then they may be leading us to believe .

I would be interested to learn if the price of Heroin has gone down in recent years as a result of the Western worlds armies intervention in the fields of Afghan , then at least we can say we have done something there .



[edit on 8-12-2009 by Max_TO]

reply to post by Max_TO

It would also seem to me that the persons protecting the crops just may have more of an interest in these crops then they may be leading us to believe .

I wouldn't doubt if there was more to it.

Hell, they could have paid the farmers the going rate that the farmers normally get and made the farmers happy.

Are we not there to help the Afghans develop there nation , ie. schools , stability , oil lines and the world bank ?

Really haven't looked, but do you recall seeing pictures of roads, schools, or anything else being built in Afghanistan?

reply to post by Max_TO


Old news, except with the current report, they forgot to add that the Taliban and Al Queda are now selling the opium as well