1969912 0 #1 June 28, 2009 "TRIESTE, Italy — The U.S. is shifting its strategy against Afghanistan's drug trade, phasing out funding for opium eradication while boosting efforts to fight trafficking and promote alternate crops, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan said Saturday.... Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. While opium cultivation dropped 19 percent last year, it remains concentrated in Afghanistan's southern provinces where the Taliban is strongest and last year earned insurgents an estimated $50 million to $70 million, according to the U.N. drug office.... "The farmers are not our enemy, they're just growing a crop to make a living," he said. "It's the drug system. So the U.S. policy was driving people into the hands of the Taliban..." "We're essentially phasing out our support for crop eradication and using the money to work on interdiction, rule of law, alternate crops," Holbrooke told the AP." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529285,00.html EDIT: I'd rather see US just leave them alone, but hey.... "Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ." -NickDG Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
redlegphi 0 #2 June 28, 2009 Agreed that this is a great policy change, though from what I saw when I was there, the U.S. and Afghans weren't doing a whole lot of drug interdiction anyway. The troops on the ground figured out pretty quick that you can fight a war against the Taliban and you can fight a war against drugs, but you can't fight both at the same time unless you what that whole mess to go on for a while longer. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jerryzflies 0 #3 June 28, 2009 Quote Obama Admin Doing Something Right The sky is falling!If you can't fix it with a hammer, the problem's electrical. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
