A surprising and informative article by Thomas Schweich who was one of the senior US narcs in Afghanistan: Schweich also solidly blames the US military for a) insisting it's not their job (during a war who's job is it?), b) hamfisted tactics (paying farmers not to grow poppys that they'll grow next year anyway only encourages more farmers to start growing poppys) and c) blocking DEA efforts (despite the fact that it's a primary source of funding for the Taliban). According to Schweich the military would prefer it remain seen as a humanitarian issue but he says that the claim that poor Afghani farmers have no other source of income is a myth: So Americans risk their lives building infrastructure which is used to make heroin? And it's these relatively rich farmers in the south that President Karzai, a Pashtun, is protecting by refusing to allow aerial eradication of poppys:
I posted this stuff a long time ago. Not about Karzai but about the biggest heroin producer in the world. Ever notice how drugs and wars and politics are tied together? Along with billions of dollars...
You're dirt poor. You have one cash crop that the world wants. You could grow flowers but that market is cornered. What will you do? I'd sell smack to the idiots of the world and watch them die!
You'd be like the Mcdonalds of crack! This might be a bit naive of a question... but is heroin illegal over there??? I'd assume so, but in places like amsterdam anything goes, sorta... maybe the middle east to?
I'm starting to see how these elite families could run the wool over all of our eyes via government control. What it seems, it is not etc. All will be revealed and maybe, reviled.
That's what I was wondering. Then again, I was stunned to find out that marijuana is illegal in Jamaica. :wow:
Nope. Most of the class was stunned two weeks ago when we found out from an engineer that grew up in Jamaica. He said it is definitely illegal but that the law enforcement only enforces the law withing 20 miles of the international airport. A couple of the people in the class had vacationed there and said they were told basically the same thing. Once you are away from the airport it isn't enforced. I guess it's thought of as more of a religious thing there according to the Jamaican... it's the natural mystic that Bob Marley sang/wrote about. :up:
Good question. Growing or processing poppies was illegal under the Taliban but AFAIK that was completely ignored. That, and heroin, are illegal now. From the Boston Globe:
