True, but you sure can kill terrorists!

That's what I quoted from you, after all...

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2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

I think a long term disengagement is the right way to go, but we're not talking about Canadian Socialists who will live and let live. A Cindy Sheehan departure is not an option. The Taliban will control the world's opium production and Iraq will make Somalia look like Santa Barbara. Not an option.

On the other hand, we can never kill all the extremists, and as I think we will witness in Lebanon, if you make more enemies than you kill, a military pogrom will bankrupt us eventually and set us back another 4000 years.

It's a long term fix, but the 8 year old kids getting an education in Iraq and Afghanistan today will be moderates we will be working with 20 and 30 years from now. And whatever we can do eliminate the economic and cultural ghetto some many Palestinians are living today will go a long way to creating moderate citizens who, while possibly being anti-semitic, will be too successful and secure in their own homeland to strap on explosives and sneak into Haifa.

I do agree that a new US administration may hold some new options, but it won't be time to break out the Joan Baez records. Keep in mind that the current President had a huge pile of crap dumped on his desk on 9/11. I don't know what I would've done differently.

Carrots will be in order, but we will still need a stick of epic proportions.

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That would be a good thing...

Read:

New York Times: Taliban's Ban On Poppy A Success, U.S. Aides Say
May 20, 2001


The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.

The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season. But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, and experts say it will not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to enforce it.

"It appears that the ban has taken effect," said Steven Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

The findings came in part from a Pakistan-based agent of the administration who was one of the two Americans on the team just returned from eight days in the poppy-growing areas of Afghanistan.

Mr. Casteel said in an interview today that he was still studying aerial images to determine if any new poppy-growing areas had emerged. He also said that some questions about the size of hidden opium and heroin stockpiles near the northern border of Afghanistan remained to be answered. But the drug agency has so far found nothing to contradict United Nations reports.

The sudden turnaround by the Taliban, a move that left international drug experts stunned when reports of near-total eradication began to come in earlier this year, opens the way for American aid to the Afghan farmers who have stopped planting poppies.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in additional emergency aid to cope with the effects of a prolonged drought. The United States has become the biggest donor to help Afghanistan in the drought.

"We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans," he said in a statement, "including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome."

The Afghans are desperate for international help, but describe their opposition to drug cultivation purely in religious terms.

At the State Department, James P. Callahan, director of Asian affairs at the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs who was one of the experts sent to Afghanistan, described in an interview how the Taliban had applied and enforced the ban. He was told by farmers that "the Taliban used a system of consensus-building."

They framed the ban "in very religious terms," citing Islamic prohibitions against drugs, and that made it hard to defy, he added. Those who defied the edict were threatened with prison.

Mr. Callahan said that in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, where the Taliban's hold is strongest, farmers said they would rather starve than return to poppy cultivation -- and some of them will, experts say.

In parts of Nangahar province in the east, where the Taliban's hold is less complete, farmers told the visiting experts that they would flee to Pakistan or risk illegal crops rather than watch their families die.

The end of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has come at a huge cost to farmers, Mr. Callahan and Mr. Casteel said. The rural economy, especially in the usual opium-poppy areas, had come to rely on the narcotics trade. "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country -- or certain regions of their country -- to economic ruin," Mr. Casteel said. "They are trying to replace the crop with wheat, but that is easier said than done."

"Wheat needs more water and earns no money until it is sold," Mr. Casteel said. "With the opium trade they used to get their money up front."

The Taliban, who used to collect taxes on the movement of opium, is also losing money, adding another layer of difficulty for a government that is already isolated and not recognized diplomatically by most nations.

Afghanistan is now under United Nations sanctions, imposed at the insistence of the United States because the Islamic movement will not turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in connection with attacks on two American Embassies in Africa in 1998.
American experts and United Nations officials say the Taliban are likely to face political problems if the effects of the opium ban are catastrophic and many people die.





Afghanistan retakes heroin crown

Afghanistan retook its place as the world's leading producer of heroin last year, after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban which had banned cultivation of opium poppies.

The finding was made in a key drug report, distributed in Kabul on Sunday by the US State Department, which supports almost identical findings by the United Nations last week.

Low-grade heroin is refined in Afghanistan from opium, which is manufactured from the extract of poppies.

"The size of the opium harvest in 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer," the report said.

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said the area of land used to cultivate opium poppies reached 30,750 hectares, compared with 1,685 hectares in 2001.

Afghanistan overtook Burma - whose production fell for the sixth straight year, to 630 tonnes - as the leading opium producer.

The British government is the leading sponsor of the anti-drugs campaign in Afghanistan.

Contradictory claims

The report said fighting illegal drug trafficking was key to the US war on terrorism.

"The US campaign against global terrorism in 2002 highlighted the importance of our international drug control programs," it said.

Despite its own figures showing the Taleban had cut Afghanistan's heroin production by about 95%, the report claimed that heroin had "financed the former Taleban regime".

The UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) report, released on 26 February, said that Afghanistan produced 3,400 tonnes last year, up from 185 tonnes in 2001.

While the US report praised US-backed Afghan president Hamid Karzai for the measures he has introduced to cut heroin production, the UN report said his two executive orders had no practical impact.

Growing problem

The Pentagon and the State Department are reportedly split over how heroin production should be tackled in the country.

While the Pentagon insists that the military operations in Afghanistan should be limited to fighting terrorists, while the State Department thinks armed forces should tackle opium production.

The US report also praised Pakistan for "excellent" co-operation with US anti-drugs efforts.

Last week the head of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, Major General Zafar Abbas, said that heroin production in Afghanistan this year is expected to reach more than 4,000 tonnes.

Russian guards patrolling Afghanistan's 1,340-kilometre border with Tajikistan, the main transport route for Afghan drugs to European markets, have seized 1.5 tonnes of heroin already this year.

Last year, Russian and Tajik border guards seized 6.7 tonnes of drugs.



According to this article, an estimated 4,500 tons of opium were produced in Afghanistan last year.

So we have opium levels in Afghanistan of:

2001: 185 tons -- (under taliban control)
2002: 3,400 tons
2005: 4,500 tons

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...