Farmers in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province are increasingly critical of US efforts over the past week to carry out airstrikes against “opium labs” they claim belong to the Taliban, saying that they are just repeating an already failed strategy.
The locals note that the province is dependent on opium farming because its the only viable economic course for them, with no other jobs. Repeated US efforts to bomb poppy fields or destroy other infrastructure haven’t changed anything about that throughout 16+ years of war.
Local politicians have complained that strikes against the labs are endangering civilians in the populated areas too, meaning that not only are the US strikes not going to change opium being Helmand’s primary industry, they’re also threatening civilians for no real gain.
Experts have also dismissed these attacks on economic assets of the Taliban as “whack-a-mole” tactics, which have consistently failed as the Taliban has remained an effective insurgency with substantial territory across Afghanistan throughout the war, and damage done to the economy primarily effects the locals, not the insurgents.
Why does disqus accept this rubbish yet stops me from posting except as a guest because I forgot my password?
This continuation of the alleged “war on drugs”, when it is the CIA and American policy which drives the drug trade, shows the hypocrisy and waste of US tactics at home and abroad. Demand is a big part of drug use, illegality helps the profits, and none of the decades of tough-guy tactics have worked at all.
Ok smartass what is YOUR solution to heroin abuse, the the Taliban etc. Probably the same as Obamas. Stick your gead up your ars and do nothibg right?
I think that I’ll just lay down in this big field of poppies poppies poppies…
Mexico News Daily | Friday, June 23, 2017
With 26,100 hectares dedicated to opium poppies, Mexico continues to be the third largest producer of the plant from which heroin is made, says the 2017 report of the UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The world’s top producer country is Afghanistan with 183,000 hectares followed by Myanmar with 55,500 hectares.
The estimated area of poppy plantations in Mexico was based on data from 2014 and 2015 and while relatively small there has been a marked upward trend.
In 2005, just 3,300 hectares of land were used to grow opium poppies in Mexico, but four years later the figure was up to 19,500 hectares.
By 2012, a thousand hectares were added to the cultivation of opium poppy, source of heroin and morphine.
Since the Afghan opium growers bother to complain, it sounds like the bombardment might actually be having some sort of effect.
Maybe the US should keep it up.