GW is a great producer of the unintended consequence.
According to the Los Angeles Times the US Administrations is in a sort of quandry over how to handle this year’sbumper crop of poppies.
Do we let the Afghans handle their own affairs or do we interfere on grounds that their freedom to do so endangers *our *junkies?
Just another benefit of the “Values President.”
Um, shouldn’t this be in GD?
What’s to debate? The Administrations is doing enough debating on its own to cover that part.
I’m just continuing to express my humble opinion that GW is an incompetent bungler who always leaps before he looks. That would suit me fine for GW as private citizen, but not as President of the United States.
Others, of course, are at liberty to express their opinions that GW is the greatest thing since zippers. However, no debate here, or expression of opinion either, is going to change GW’s God given power to screw things up.
For all Bush’s faults, I’d rather see comparatively free Afghanis growing opium, albeit illegally, than see them living under the Taliban. There are actually some worse evils in the world than heroin.
I’ve changed my mind about the Iraqi war, from supporting it to opposing it, but I still have no doubt about the correctness of attacking and overthrowing the Taliban. And remember that was an international, cooperative effort that was widely supported by countries besides the U.S. So it wasn’t entirely Bush’s fault.
Stupid State Department. You suck at narcotic prevention, give the money to south Asia, you bastards. You know, something that might actually make a difference.
Let them grow opium. Damnit. Not like anything will make it to Indy, but mmm, fragrant opium…
Ok, I’ll stop. I do not condone drug use in any way, shape or form. Drugs are bad, mmkay?
This isn’t a discussion, it’s a rant from somebody who invested all their emotional capital in politics (and lost). I humbly suggest John Kerry is not the Second Coming and George Bush doesn’t have 666 tattooed on his ass. They’re both somewhere in the middle and one of them lost. That’s what happens in elections. I’ve lived through it by learning to ignore the rhetoric of the debates.
Life isn’t all black and white and neither is war and politics. The Afghanis just had their first legitimate election EVER a few months ago. People risked their lives to vote. I say this again, PEOPLE RISKED THEIR LIVES TO VOTE. Think about that next time it rains in the United States during an election and people find that too inconvenient. It rained continuously in Ohio during the election. how many votes were lost on both sides because of this?
All this happened in a region run exclusively by religiously motivated warlords. It’s an arid country that has no industrial base and cannot support agriculture for export. They were growing poppies before President Bush was elected and will continue to grow them until outside groups feel safe enough to invest in the available labor pool.
This war was necessary and supported by the entire world. It was executed in record time and a legitimate government was formed soon after. If you can name a more successful war then have at it, I’m listening. I’m personally impressed that people would risk death to vote.
The United States has waged a political war in South America for years with no interruption in the flow of drugs. If you think it can be done overnight in Afghanistan you’ll need to support that opinion with some new ideas because every President who’s tried to stop drug production has failed. Again, I’m listening. I would love to hear a really good idea on the subject because I don’t have one.
Moving this from IMHO to The BBQ Pit.
Stop shitting money away fighting an unwinnable war on drugs and redirect that money to education (of a stamp other than “if you buy drugs you paid for 9/11” and its ilk) and treatment? Legalize currently illegal drugs under strict controls so that the level of profit for producing them isn’t so great? Stop reacting to drugs with hysteria?
Poppies were grown under the Taliban. They were a huge cocaine exporter. It was one of the sidebars to the women’s rights groups demanding intervention. (Women’s rights groups wanted it because of how the women were being treated, but they were using opium and cocaine production as a secondary reason).
On the plus side, this is not now primarly funding the Taliban or the Afgani government. Though I do continue to worry about the warloads opium productio does fund, this is an improvement.
(Note, not a Bush fan. But the Taliban should have been taken care of long ago - back when we were giving them money to build oil pipelines).
I was mighty glad for the pain killing drip after my hysterectomy. I’m told (by a friend who likes to tease that was visiting me, and my husband) that as I was waking up fully I clicked the handheld delivery device like “an Atari joystick” if I so much as twitched. I was in a world of hurt. Thankfully it eased up quickly, and I was ok with codeine by the time I left the hospital. Where do medically used opiate products like morphine come from anyway? Where is it produced and refined?
I assume you mean heroin and/or opium. Far as I know coca leaves 'tain’t terribly common in south Asia :).
Actually, it’s worse – do we spray the poppies now, and risk pissing off the rural Afghan voters against our American-sponsored candidates, or wait until after the election and bust the distributors then?
Or, in other words, we’re gonna intervene in their affairs anyway, it’s just a question of which route will better allow us to maintain control of their government…
David, I usually enjoy your posts, but this one is lame. A lot of good was done by ending the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan. The poppies have been grown there and opium distributed from there since time out of mind.
Find something legitimate to bash Bush about, eh?
Yes, ending the Taliban rule was good but then there was no follow-up in the form of reconstruction and an effort to help them find a better way, better from our point of view that is, to make a living than growing the raw materials for heroin.
Surely you can’t seriously argue that we had to abandon Afghanistan to its own devices because Iraw was a threat to national security.
No, I don’t argue that. We may not be finished with Afghanistan’s rebuilding either. Culture changes take time.
Well, they just held free elections, and as Dangerosa pointed out, they’ve been growing poppies there for years. We’re not going to solve it during one administration.
(Does anyone else read “poppies” and think of the Wicked Witch of the West? Maybe we need Glinda to send a blizzard.)
Guys, the Taliban may not be in official power, but who the hell do you think the current warlords were in their other life? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
When we turned our attention away from Afghanistan without completely irradicating the Taliban and the warlords, they picked themselves up, shook themselves off, and went right back into business.
Which IS booming, BTW. When my brother was in Afghanistan last year on active duty, they would walk past fields of poppies and dope that would rival anything High Times magazine ever even dreamed of. But he was SF, so it was not in their job description to do anything except walk on by.
Wasn’t the United Nations in charge of awarding the contracts for the majority of the reconstruction projects?