It's amazing that some people don't see that.

It's not as if we're there to benefit the Afghan people, though some people seem to think we are.

Interestingly, if we've made the country so secure, how is it that Afghanistan remains a world center for opium trade?

In finding that Jan 22, 2009 story, you missed the Jan 23, 2009, update from your same source:

Civilian from Vegas won’t face court martial, will return home

I missed that part of the constitution.

You have the right to be tried as the Secretary of Defense sees fit.

I would like this answered as well, how is it that we have all these troops and planes and predator drones scouring afghanistan, yet we can't seem to stop the world center of opium trade? the taliban prior to US invasion were doing a good job at shutting down the opium in afghanistan, we invade and 8 years later it is booming? hmm...

Oh dear, only if you knew.

Well, to be fair, the US didn't really go in there to stop the opium trade. The Taliban, on the other hand, made it a point to do so.

Not to mention, the US and co. disrupting it would probably be a tactical mistake that would only serve to create more enemies in the region.

Don't leave us hanging like that. Just tell us.

As I understand it, global terror organizations get a lot of funding from the opium trade. It seems it would be a tactical error not to stop it.

It's not as if the average person in Afghanistan was making big bucks growing opium.

Come on. And we are not only not stopping it but it is flourishing under our occupation. The amount of opium grown and coming out of Afghanistan requires real infrastructure(which we are building)- roads, trucks, buildings to process it, months to grow it in huge open fields. It requires support from the government (that we are propping up), support from our military to not stop it when it is clearly operating right under our noses, and we could stop a good percentage of it fairly easily. So why is this? This whole it is not our mission stuff is bs, it is a huge issue for the whole world, the mecca of the world's heroin is being grown and processed and shipped out of a country under US military occupation. You think this is unimportant or unrelated? We are talking billions and billions worth of heroin, billions worth of black market cash.

Of course, logically confronting this issue might make one question why the US is really still their. Wat! i thought we were still there to fight the guis who hate us for our freedomz???

Lol. So stopping billions in illegal drug trade spreading and causing massive problems and damage all around the world, black market money funding terrorism/warlords/AQ would be a tactical mistake. Talk about Orwellian...

You can find it in the press, but only because it got out of hand.

Yeah, if the War on Drugs in our own country has taught us anything, it's that stopping a population of several million people from growing a plant worth big bucks on the other side of the world is easy.

Oh come on it's a little easier to tackle the problem where the plants are growing than after it's already distributed.

Lol, really? We can't stop it so why even try in afghanistan, even though we mistakenly attempt to stop it seemingly everywhere else? The opium is grown outside in the open in large fields, would be very easy for predator drones to spot and they'd have weeks and weeks to respond. I mean the taliban didn't have the technology and funding we have and they were doing a good job at shutting it down before we invaded.

There is a reason why much of the heroin and coke is imported into the US from places like columbia and afghanistan, instead of grown in big fields in the US. And it is because it would be very easy to get caught and lose huge fields of crop. The drugs that are grown in the US aren't done on this kind of large scale. Now you didn't even attempt to answer the other points. We spend billions annually fighting a war on drugs in our country and around the world for reasons like- protect the children, stopping illegal drug money that funds organized crime/terrorism/corruption. Unless of course we are fighting another war and occupying another country for years and years that just happens to be in the heroin producing center of the world and then we can't be bothered to stop it even though it is being produced on a large scale right out in the open... because of um strategic reasons... yeah that's it.

Were fighting them over there so they can't come over here. The fact that $64 billion/year worth of heroin is transported from there to here despite our military presence is irrelevant. I'm sure Homeland security is inspecting all the shipments to ensure that they are only heroin and is checking to make sure all the smugglers are not terrorists. Be happy. Your government is protecting you.

THIS

RU serious? We can't even do that in Columbia, a much smaller nation with easier terrain and vast more infrastructure and more foreign govt capabilities/support, despite 20years trying.

This is so LOL. US deserves scorn because it can't stop an impoverished nation of 28 million from growing an extremely valuable commodity in high demand over 251,000 square miles of the toughest terrain while also fighting an insurgency on the other side of the world.

Please stop already. There are plenty of good reasons to criticize our actions in Afghanistan. Claiming that stopping poppy production is "fairly easy" (as has been stated) is completely asinine.

We can't find teh opiums farmed in giant fields out in the open. Opps we are literally falling on it.

caption: http://www.life.com/image/85552352


http://www.life.com/image/85498612

Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/wo.../05afghan.html
Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/wo...ntel.html?_r=1
Got to prop up those Karzai boys. This will end well I'm sure.

And just to give an idea of the scale. In 2009 the UNODC estimates that opium production in afghanistan at 123,000 hectares (about 303,000 acres, over 5,000 tons of heroin). Also 90% of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, less than 2% is seized there (more than 20% of global cocaine supply is seized by its main producer, Colombia).

Also worth noting for the coincidence theorists.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...4&articleId=91

It appears if we really want to stop mass opium/heroin production in afghanistan we should have left the taliban in charge. See what happens when a government takes over that actually really wants to stop opium production, in one year it basically disappears...

We're under-strength to complete the mission we have now. So much so that we're sending a "surge" of more troops and you guys want Predators to drop Hellfires on some poppy fields? Lol.

Yeah, are we over there to fight the ****ing opium business or to avenge 9/11 and kill the turrorists?

I wonder how many people in this thread were against going to Afghanistan in the first place. I was way too young (16) to have an idea like that. Now that I'm grown up and pretty anti-war (*insert liberal *** comments here*) it has been easy for me to say let's get out for a while.

yet removing the sole source of income for many afghans would while not providing them alternatives because they lack such infastructure would only drive them towards the taliban/ other warlords idealogically.

removing the opium from afghanistan is like 10 steps after removing the taliban. note the taliban only removed opium from afghanistan after they were firmly in control of regions and most of the country.

then again a few public massacres could instill fear in enough afghans to sway them to ourside.....oh how i hate being on the moral highground :P

And removing the sole source of income for the taliban and the insurgency as well. Where do you think they get their funding from? How can we defeat them while letting them keep their main source of funding. Perhaps some wars aren't meant to be won, only sustained...
Yes, and now they no longer want it removed because it is financially sustaining the resistance.

I love how in this instance it is we can't stop them from growing opium because the farmers need the income. Um, this is the main principal of the war on drugs, that our country has foolishly waged for decades and wasted 10's of billions on around the world and locked up 100,000's of our own citizens over. Where do you think massive amounts of drugs are produced previously(poor countries, by poor farmers)? Now when we have our military in the heroin producing capital of the world, when it is openly acknowledged that the insurgency/taliban are funding themselves via opium, our answer is we can't stop it or even really try, because think of the farmers??? We need the various local warlords to like us.

What is our mission in afghanistan at this point? And by that i mean something tangible, that can be defined and we can know if we are winning or losing. Because to me it just seems like we are fighting this boogeyman/ideology that we can't really define, and just so happens that our military presense is sustaining the flourishing opium/heroin trade that might be shut down again by the taliban if we left.

fed-
i agree with the response that its funding the insurgency and the civilians at the same time.

initially the taliban funded themselves by setting up roads/checkpoints along various highways from pakistan and providing security for those who paid the toll. with the resurgence of the taliban in the waziristan (and something staring w/ a B in pakistan) this again is a major source of funding. (search transport mafia)

its the lack of clarity in the objectives and the funding to achieve those objectives. the fact is in a "backward" country like afghanistan farming opium has a far higher revenue for farmers than other crops as weve established. in order to counter this vast amounts of infastructure would have to be built up philosophies accepted/ discussed by tribes in order produce development that can sustain itself. it would be wrong to say it would be somethign like the marshal plan because germany/japan already had the philosophies, cultural links with the west in place. WWI/WWII were fought within the same "culture" or civilization, idk what the proper word is, we each had the same or similar philosophies on war.

in the arab-muslim (not iran) world post WWII, then along with the rise of Naser there was homegrown discussion on philosophies mainly because they wanted something that was not imported from the west resulting in arab views/philosphies. thats not to it was homogenous, but discussion was open for a while about such topics.

for that reason i long reasoned that iraq was the only "winnable" war of the 2. iraq has had western links/contact with the west for far longer than afghanistan. to be honest ive long viewed afghanistan as a collection of what russia/england didnt want. i find it hard to believe that people brought up dividing iraq along ethnic lines, but no one brought up dividing afghanistan into various tribal areas. its long been a place where central rule outsie kabul didnt extend far and when it did it was only because of a strong central leader.

im rambling bout a few different things now so ill stop ill discuss each more if you want, but i simply dont know how to reply you saying we cant/arent stopping it which arent circumventable, i wasnt trying to advance the the strategy ive heard only say it.

You want to remove the Taliban? Knock on ISI's door, not take a sledgehammer to a nail. Though I doubt that will work as easy as it would have years ago, since their hounds have gone rabid now.

ISI (if i have my abbreviations correct, ~CIA of pakistan?!) has been quite compromised by the taliban and the govt of pakistan is so fractious that its hard to tell whos pro taliban whos not, you have to go each cheif person by person. various army chiefs are pro taliban, its not like pakistan is a whole homogenous country

Actually it's very easy, just ask Amrullah Saleh, head of the Afghan NDS. He even knows where they live!