Foreign Policy..

[santahog]

How does one justify the continued existence of these fields/crops?
Is it part of the Farm Bill or something???

Somebody please explain this to me, will you?...

[Solus]

Is it against Afgan law to grow opium?

And if it is, do we want our troops enforcing local law? Maybe ticketing litterers or jay walkers?

And if it isn't against the law there, what business do we have destroying someone's crop?

[santahog]

Is it against Afgan law to grow opium?

And if it is, do we want our troops enforcing local law? Maybe ticketing litterers or jay walkers?

And if it isn't against the law there, what business do we have destroying someone's crop?

That's lame..

[jaybet]

Opium and the arms trade are the only thing that have kept most Afghans alive for the last 100 years. They kill women who are raped - why worry about a little opium?

[tombogan03884]

Maybe we should outlaw it.
That's worked so well with heroin.
What the f*ck else are they going to grow ?
If you show them another cash crop for sh!t soil that pays better so they can support their families they would grow that.

[Sponsor]

[fightingquaker13]

You want to turn every farmer into Taliban? Destroy the one crop they can make money on. That'll win hearts and minds. 

[Solus]

That's lame..

So, explain your justification for us destroy the property of residents of a country where our armed forces are stationed when that property proposes no immediate threat to our troops or out country?

[santahog]

So, explain your justification for us destroy the property of residents of a country where our armed forces are stationed when that property proposes no immediate threat to our troops or out country?

Well, to begin on a very minor point, CID is working full time prosecuting drug crime in the ranks, the drugs being produced and sold locally. I only mention that in direct answer to your question, because of a conversation with a CID SSGT back from Afghanistan over Christmas 2010, and an episode from several years ago now where two idiots got killed at a local bazaar trying to find a buzz.. Idiots..
The larger point is that it creates cash money.. hard currency for the savages to fund operations to confront soldiers there and civilians here. Purchase of opiates on the streets here, (and around the world) destroys lives, here, turns the streets, here, into war zones, here, and runs counter to every effort the country (gov't) has made to stop the domestic destruction caused by it's presence, here..
I'm not worried so much about an Afghan dirt/poppy farmer exacting his revenge for taking his cash crop.. They are starving over there.. If you can't grow anything else in sh** soil, you can grow potatoes and/or peanuts..
If their activities over there weren't hurting us, here, I'd go along with your point. That isn't the case, though.. It hurts us, twice, HARD..
If we weren't occupying the place, I'd say that invading Afghanistan to destroy the poppy fields might be a bit of a stretch. We're already there. It's not much of an effort.. Before you offer the example of paraquat, I'm not suggesting to poison the product.. I want the fields unable to sustain plant life of any kind.. No, we're not going to convince them to plant a different crop, anymore than we're going to convince Peru or Bolivia to stop growing coca plants. (Coca leaves, btw, are good for what ails you.. I think they ought to be legal to buy at the pharmacy or grocery store, to be used in that form, only.. I'm familiar.. It doesn't hurt you.. But I digress..)
The stuff creates a real, major problem, for us, here.. We can curtail the effects of the problem here, with very little effort, there, while we're there..
What do we lose here by taking anti drug policy to it's logical conclusion there in this circumstance? Are we afraid we're gonna piss em off or something?.. We're not cultivating the place for Disney to Exxon. You can't go surfing there.. Islam can't use it as a stick to beat us over the head with since it's against their "faith" to partake..
Who loses, that we want to see win?

I'm sorry if "lame" is a word that offends, but it's as accurate as any.. Show me an excuse for not dealing with it that isn't lame.. I'm not seeing it.. And I'm not trying to be confrontational with you.. I'm just stating my case..

[deepwater]

remember, poppies are used to make morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone (aka Vicodin), codeine, hydromorphone, Percocet, Fentanyl and other useful drugs. though none of us know for sure if these poppies are being sold for drug abuse or for legitimate medicinal purposes. they may be selling to our drug companies for all we know, look at who reports it. and yes, coca leaves are good for what ails you I here, and it is sold as tea in the grocery stores in Peru. in fact, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was a union boss for coca plantations. hhmmmmm...

[tombogan03884]

Not to mention "Poppy seed rolls" (Which will cause you to fail a drug screening)
From SH's post
" I want the fields unable to sustain plant life of any kind.."
So basically Santahog wants to starve the entire population so they are forced to be good little doobies and depend only on Govt ?
Isn't that why we hate Obama ?
I will point out that while I have no real problem with exterminating any variety of Muslims  who do you think is going to wind up paying to feed them ?
They breed like rats, it is much less expensive in the long run to just deal with a few junkies here.