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| Afghanistan | |
| Afghan Poppy Failure Likely to Impact War Efforts | |
| 2012-05-24 | |
| Afghanistan's poppy crop - the source of most of the world's illicit opiates - appears to have suffered a devastating failure this year, according to US and Afghan officials, in a development that is likely to affect the course of the war as US-led forces withdraw. US commanders and Afghan officials, who ascribe the poor harvest to blight, expect the Taliban to reel as opium revenues dry up in coming months. "It's a blow to the insurgency," Kandahar Provincial Governor Tooryalai Wesa said. The provincial government of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , which accounts for half of the country's opium cultivation, has hailed the blight as a "divine decree" by Allah himself. The small crop, however, is also certain to bankrupt thousands of ordinary farmers, possibly pushing them to join the insurgency. Already, three farmers have did away with himself in Helmand because of the failed poppy harvest, local officials say. Opium prices, meanwhile, have soared. A kilogram of dry opium now sells at the farm gate for more than $300, up from some $200 in March, and just $80 or so in 2009, according to United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... surveys. Such a high price is "scary," as it is likely to lead to increased opium cultivation next year, while also bringing a windfall to large-scale dealers who hoarded last year's stocks, cautioned Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the Afghanistan representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. "This is definitely not good news at all ... Those who already are hedging will definitely gain," Lemahieu said. "Who will lose out on this? The poor farmers, who often have engaged in expensive loans against the opium to be harvested.
Whether a blessing or a disaster, the poppy blight injects another complication to the US-led coalition's plans to transfer security responsibility to Afghan forces and withdraw most of their own troops by 2014, a transition discussed Sunday at the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... summit in Chicago. Afghanistan was virtually poppy-free in 2001, the year when the country's Taliban rulers eradicated opium cultivation in a failed bid to win international recognition, and the UN disputes American assertions that the Taliban are the main beneficiaries of the Afghan narcotics trade. "The narrative of the Taliban as the major player is something I do not take," Lemahieu said. "The narcos are not on the side of the Taliban, they are in collusion with the Taliban." | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #10 It wouldn't be better for the employment prospects of those currently employed because drugs are bad MMMkay... |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-05-24 16:29 |
| #9 If we were going to have a war on drugs we should have developed sterile versions of the various crops long ago and found a way to cross-breed them to eliminate those crops. It would be a lot better than the war on drug use. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-05-24 14:54 |
| #8 And they say there's a complete collapse of R&D in former Sov. U.. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-05-24 13:12 |
| #7 Yeah, you weaponize a blight and go spraying it in places like Afghanistan and then people are gonna wonder why the American corn crop gets the blight. I don't pretend to know who gets the money from the Afghan poppy crop but it is kinda funny how after the Americans invaded the place it became the world's leading producer of opium. From everything I'd heard before, the world's leading opium producing region was the Golden Triangle in southeast Asia. Whatever happened to that? But then, it would be interesting to know where all that dope goes. Europe? America? Russia? China? Iran? You talk about biological warfare...a fertile imagination can come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories. And as for a "really free society" where the people can smoke all the opium they want, just ask the Chinese how that worked for them. Maybe it's just as well if all the idiots smoke themselves to death. That's just Darwinism, right? I mean, think of all the people who can't quit cigarettes and then imagine them with opium or heroin. We won't have to worry about paying for their Social Security. As for the War on Drugs being a failure, ask yourself: Is there anything our government does right? Anything at all? Somebody gets the money and the drugs keep flowing. Hell, we send guns to the Mexican drug cartels and they send us dope. That's a funny kind of a war. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-05-24 12:35 |
| #6 Much more subtle breeding a hog for conditions and them just popping up out of nowhere, with incredible metabolism and appetite and quick breeding cycle, a previously undiscovered swine which must have been a cave dweller, chased out by the insurgents using the caves. Real wrath of allan stuff. If they could oink in an English accent could be the ghosts of Khyber back for revenge. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2012-05-24 12:24 |
| #5 I'm sure we could develope a blight, probably a fungus. We could weaponize this current blight and spray it on their fields, like we do with Roundup to coca in South America. We COULD, the question to me is: Why have we not already? My little brother went to A-stan and came back very disillusioned. They would go out on patrol and walk through fields of poppies, but no coalition forces were allowed to destroy a single poppy. Reconcile that with the knowledge that those poppies are going to be the main source of funding for your enemy. But they would gladly courtmartial you if you chopped them down and lit them on fire. I think I'd start to wonder just why the f*ck I was there too. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Elmuling8724 2012-05-24 10:44 |
| #4 Gee, a "blight", you say? How, y'know, mysterious... |
| Posted by: mojo 2012-05-24 10:34 |
| #3 Agreed B.P. After years of supporting the "War on Drugs", I look back and see the wake of devastation it has caused and tremble. Let's take about 2/3rds of the laws/regulations off the American people and see what a really free society can do. |
| Posted by: SLindsey 2012-05-24 09:48 |
| #2 Personally I'd rather see an end to drug prohibition and see the price fall. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-05-24 06:50 |
| #1 ascribe the poor harvest to blight I kind of wish I thought the CIA and Monsanto had the ability to be responsible for such blight. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-05-24 06:08 |