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COMMENTS:
Voted : Too simple
The taliban forbid the production of opium in 2000. So it wasn't a source of income for them anyway.
Voted : Bad idea
paying them to fight will only work while the payments are going their way, and incrementally increasing month after month. that's the nature of bribery.
Hearts and minds campaign works with people on the ground. We often hear about one out of a million US soldier making a difference in afganistan, by simply talking to them, and (gasp) treating them like a human beings.
they said a soccer ball given to a neighborhood school, and lunch partaken with elders brought more taliban intel than thousand of dollars in bribes.
by LCD on Tue Sep 15, 09 11:22am
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^true that will only work while the payments continue but so too for winning their hearts and minds only works when your troops are there to do it. Are you more willing to keep bribing or keeping troops there?
quirk99
I read that same wiki but if you read The U.N report or the NY Times report and a number of other reports, this claim that the Taliban aren't involved in the opium trade is laughable.
Voted : Too simple
We've already seized the valley in Afghanistan, which the Soviets never did, where the majority of the opium production took place, earlier this year. Besides that the majority of that shit that gets produced, 70 some percent, gets exported within Asia.
^Wouldn't that change if Big Pharma was buying the opium? Maybe $64 a kilo (based on a U.N report of Afghanistan opium rates) is expensive for pharmaceutic industry, I'm sure NATO and America could help subsidized the price down to $20.00 a kg.
Voted : Too simple
The biggest problem with this "solution" is convincing the warlords to fight the Taliban (convincing them to fight The Soviets was far easier being that they were godless invaders). Plus it would be even harder to convince them to join the Afghan Military.
I do believe we will see negotiations with the Taliban and various warlords within the next 5 years.
Oh I imagine there was still a certain amount of production. but the min reason the us funded the taliban was to remove the drug trade anyway so where they sold it is a mystery. Certainly it is against islam and the percentage of muslims to white europeans who take heroin is vastly different.
In fact in my entire life i have met only one muslim who takes herion. And I know a lot of muslims. you cant hide the effects of heroin it's far to obvious.
Besides CI I didn't get the information from wiki. what makes you assume I did? the information was in last months independent. It was explaining how the heroin trade in afghanistan was almost none existant and now its almost back to its pre taliban days.
Why else have the us government asked britain to stem the increased production?
On a cynical note with afghanistan shut down for heroin it means the US can spread its columbian heroin around the globe. If you think that is too much to accept remember the british did exactky the same when it sold afghani herioin to the chinese. sold here isn't acurate. forced is more accurate. their opium was much higher quality but they still had to buy afghan heroin to appease the british.
Colombian heroin is irrelevant to the war in Afghanistan. It is also irrelevant if Afghans use heroin. My point was whether or not U.S buying up the Afghan opium would cut funding to the Taliban. You don't believe the Taliban benefit heavily from the opium trade. I do.
I don't think it is irrelevent. The US wanted the taliban in power to control the opium in afghanistan in the first place. I think the american gov make a lot of money out of columbian heroin. Hence why they wanted the taliban in power in the first place. I'd say that was very relevent.
I said muslims not afghans. so the point remains. who would they sell it too?
I also admitted there may be some trade but not on the same scale, I saw pictures of fields burnt down that used to produce heroin. I also consider the independent a reliable source.
"My point was whether or not U.S buying up the Afghan opium would cut funding to the Taliban" I dont see where you made this point?
""My point was whether or not U.S buying up the Afghan opium would cut funding to the Taliban" I dont see where you made this point?"
Ok it's the bit about pharmacuticals. my bad. but I think they get it from columbia anyway...
Legal opium importation from India and Turkey is conducted by Mallinckrodt, Noramco, Abbott Laboratories, and Purdue Pharma in the United States, and legal opium production is conducted by GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson and Johnson, Johnson Matthey, and Mayne in Tasmania, Australia; Sanofi Aventis in France; Shionogi Pharmaceutical in Japan; and MacFarlan Smith in the UK
ok fair enought. But again there is still traffic from columbia so one can only assume thats illegal opium for street trade. I still think the government profits from it but i never assumed it was for pharmacuticals.
So then that leaves the question. why do the US government have such a problem with opium production in afghanistan? surely it never hits the american market anyway. Bear in mind the US government had a problem with it BEFORE the taliban were put in power. the question is, why?
^the same reason why all governments have a problem with the opium trade. It's used to make heroin.
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