That was suggested by Christopher Hitchens, and I think it’s a valid idea. We are currently buying our opiates from Turkey, and paying loads of money to try to destroy opiates in Afghanistan. We should have a ban on opiate imports from Turkey until they admit and offer restitution for the Armenian Genocide (which they will never do). Then, the same Americans currently trying to get Afghan farmers to not grow poppies can get them to grow, but sell exclusively to US drug companies. This will allow Afghanistan farmers to stabilize and eventually branch out into other crops.
Work for what? Work at killing people or watching them from the sky? Yes of course as it has worked non-stop for the past 8 years.
But nothing will work in Afghanistan short of a miraculous literacy drive. Afghanistan is way backward, the vast majority of its populace is illiterate. As our operational conditions for victory are a functioning modern state, no they won’t do anything. It’s not doable, what needs to be done in Afghanistan is a total change in their culture, something that cannot occur for several generations at least. If in 50 years Afghanistan reverses its literacy rate from 90% illiterate to 90% literate then it stands a chance, but there is no chance for victory in Afghanistan. The Taliban are the conservative wing of the Pashtun tribe, the Pashtun tribe is the ethnic majority in Afghanistan. The idea that Afghanistan can be ruled by anyone but the Pashtun in a Democracy is foolish.
If we changed tactics to where we only struck at insurgents but were otherwise basically invisible in Afghanistan, then we might be able to do something. But this war is unwinnable.
Actually this is specifically an issue for the market. There are markets that thirst for morphine. Pharmaceutical companies should be working out supply contracts with these farmers.
It’s funny that you think that we can just buy all the raw opium. First of all having a 75% markup from farmer to end user isn’t that inconsistent a markup for crops in general. Second of all we’d need to know all of the farmers. Third of all what makes you think that the farmers aren’t the Taliban themselves?
All your idea would do is create more demand and thus you’d see farmers scrambling to increase the supply in order to sell the more profitable opium rather than less profitable rice/whatever else they grow in Afghanistan.
Taliban is the Pashtun word for “student”. It’s not a social movement that arose from hard-working farmers from idle students. The poppy farmer’s suffered under the Taliban,which was every bit as dedicated to eradicating their product as the Americans. If we come in and say “we’ll buy you all the poppies you can grow” they’ll be happy.
Actually and tangentally, the whole Turkey/Armenia thing is looking up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101201252.html
Drones are an exceptionally important and useful adjunct to ground forces in Afghanistan. Drones alone will not be sufficient to win in Afghanistan, but they’re likely to be a component of a successful war there. Of course, they could be used indiscriminately, but that’s true of absolutely any weapons system.
For long term observation (and some intervention) of large expanses of distant terrain, their abilities are tremendous.
I am unconvinced. Killing people should not look like a video game. We try to keep a distance from the blood and gore that is what we are doing.
How will drones win hearts and minds?
Well there is a shock, ehe? I mean, usually you have SUCH an open mind and all…
Why? Do you think there is some profound difference between a pilot toggling a switch to drop a bomb from an air craft and a pilot toggling a switch remotely? Have you actually seen what a modern cockpit looks like?
I’m curious why you think there is a difference.
Of course we do. Why should we not? Do you think it’s better somehow to put our own soldiers at risk? War isn’t about ‘fair’.
They don’t. That’s not their function. Of course, you are excluding the middle (imagine that)…it’s not as if we are fighting the entire war using only drones after all. A point you seem unaware of. Drones are simply a tool…one tool among many others that we are using. To win ‘hearts and minds’ we have OTHER tools…such as the Special Forces units we have operating throughout Afghanistan. Your assertion is as meaningless as saying ‘well, how will an Abrams win hearts and minds’, or even ‘How does this hammer win hearts and minds’.
As always, your contribution to the thread is basically good for comic relief and little else.
-XT
Creating your own arguments and then crushing them is your methodology. I don’t recall anybody on this thread claiming that drones were the only thing that we were using. I don’t think anyone would be that stupid. it took you to make that crap up.
I don’t think drones are going to do much good. We claim we are out to win hearts and minds. Only in XT land can that be possible. It the real world the drones blew up a marriage killing a bunch of celebrants. I am sure the Afghans had no trouble with that. As long as you don’t then they would have to be just wrong.
Are you saying that the survivors of the wedding party would have been alright with it if it had been a manned plane that attacked them rather than a drone? They fired into the air and were mistaken for small arms fire targeting the plane. The decision to bomb them would have happened the same way if it had been manned, yet you imply that this somehow would have been better to the Afgans.
Either way we would not have won hearts and minds.
Sorry, I missed your question. Answered in the other thread, FWIW.
Why post my entire reply if you were just going to focus on one aspect? Couldn’t you just have quoted the relevant part of my own post?
As to your assertion here, YOU were the one implying such with your statement. If you think I’m deliberately misreading what you meant, then you are free to flag a Mod and have them call me down. Knock yourself out.
What do you base your opinion on here though?
Yes, but if you had taken to time to actually read through my whole post, you would have noted that the drones aren’t intended to win hearts and minds. Of course, if you were capable of reading through my whole post and understanding it then you probably wouldn’t have posted this reply in the manner you did, ehe?
It’s too bad that in Gonzo-Land they are incapable of actually having the ability to read and comprehend what is written to them.
In the real world mistakes happen. Sometimes those mistakes are tragic.
I’m sure they did. I’m equally sure they didn’t focus their blame on the fact that the killing instrument was a drone, but rather that the agent of the killing was an American. You seem incapable of understanding this point, unfortunately.
As long as you keep building strawmen based on your own inability to read and comprehend what others are telling you then any posting conversation with you is like talking to a particularly dense wall.
-XT
Unmanned vehicles fighting wars are the wave of the future. We’d better get used to it. Their effectiveness, usefulness, accuracy, dependability, low cost and ease of operation and production are only going to increase as technology marches on.
beats war drums
Killing Osama Bin Laden would help no? And Al Qaeda doesn’t have to be in the areas the Taliban has control over. What’s most important is that the Taliban funds and supports their operations.
But you are right about one thing. That if we just destroy Al Qaeda it won’t do us any good. We need to destroy the organizations that support terrorism. The Taliban is an extremely radical organization that simply cannot be allowed to control a whole country. That will only breed more terrorists.
I think that is just political posturing in case Obama decides he doesn’t want to commit to the troops necessary to fight the Taliban.
It did not help us much when we let the Taliban take over Afghanistan after the Soviets left.
Do you think we can pay Al Qaeda off?
There is a $50 million bounty on Osama bin Laden head. If it was possible to pay of the Taliban we would have done it already.
One thing at a time. Al Qaeda is not the strongest adversary in Afghanistan. I think the Taliban can be bought.
I disagree.
You can buy off large numbers of Taliban but you’re not going to get them to accept our presence for any length of time. The issues they’re interested in, their own Pashtuni homeland, getting rid of a Tajik/other-dominated government (Karzai’s ethnicity notwithstanding) aren’t going to change unless they’re given more political power than is likely. Most of these guys are fighting first and foremost because there are foreign invaders in their country killing their kin and our strategy is to remain squatting there for the indefinite future so you’re always going to have resistance to us and what’s seen as an illegitimate government that we prop up. So other than being able to remain there without getting too many troops killed it’s difficult to see what we gain by buying them off other than it fading as an issue for 2008 or allowing Obama to fraudulently claim he won/sending troops was a military success for him like Bush did in Iraq. But that’s almost certainly what we’re going to see. An increase in troops to not look like a liberal weenie along with a mass Taliban bribe followed by a “victory” bs narrative in the media.
What do you base your disagreement with? Even assuming you are right, what would you be buying…and how long would they stay bought?
-XT
The number of Taliban in Afghanistan that know the whereabouts of Osama is much, much smaller than the number that would benefit by payments to not blow us up.
Was this tongue in cheek? If not, it makes no sense. Just because they don’t want to turn in ObL that means they would be open to bribes to keep us from blowing them up? How do the two go together? What do you base your assessment of their willingness on, other than the fact that they don’t want to turn in ObL?
From another perspective, let’s fantasize that you are right and they ARE open to direct or indirect bribes, and willing to compromise their fundamentalist religious views and talk peace. Do you REALLY think Obama is going to simply offer them a boat load of money with no conditions, and in a Monte Python-esque sort of way say ‘Ok, off you go!’?? One of the major conditions would be similar to the one’s Bush gave them before we originally dropped the hammer…All AQ senior officers turned over to the US, all AQ bases removed from Afghanistan, etc etc.
What makes you think that the Taliban is willing to go that route today, even for a boatload of money? Do you have any evidence, or is it pure speculation on your part based on what YOU (or I, especially if they threw in some dancing girls and a few cases of cigars and single malt scotch) would do, if you were them?
-XT
Frontline had a program on Afghanistan last night. They described the Taliban as a proxy army for Pakistan. The people in Afghanistan have no faith in the government, they have been corrupt for so long the people can not relate to them at all. Karzai’s right hand man is a drug kingpin. Whoever is in charge will fix the elections and loot the country. The people know that. The Al Queada presence is in the Pakistan border. Pakistan fuels them while taking American tax money to pretend to be cracking down on Ben Laden. The American who gives him out tax money says it just feels so wrong.
The war for hearts and minds is impossible. They showed an American army group that took an Afghan city . The people left. The army wanted them to shop and come back ,saying they would protect them. They said no way, the Taliban made it clear they had to shop elsewhere. It is a fools errand. Another waste of American money and lives.