Posted on 04/17/2009 3:41:39 PM PDT by ckilmer
A pretty good strategy for winning the Afghan war would be to drop in some ,biodiesal refineries that can produce diesel for "$1.25 to $1.75 per gallon from a variety of feedstocks that ranges from restaurant and ethanol-plant waste oils to non-edible crops and plain old pond scum." Drop those in the poppy valleys, kill the poppy plants and offer to pay the farmers for their dead poppy plants to use as feedstock for the biodiesal refineries. That diesal could be used for ground based vehicles. Interestingly, if you read this article, you'll note that the airline industry is far along in the process of getting jet fuel from biodiesal products. "The industry is currently preparing a technical report that is coming out in the next couple of months. That will then go into the fuel specification approval process."
The military is fast enough so that it would take a year or less to get the refineries in operation. Time their opening to just before the poppy harvest of 1010. Kill the poppies. Pay the farmers for the dead poppies. (The heads are probably full of oil. Even if they're not it doesn't matter.) Use the oil to fuel truck and planes. Whatever the cost, its not likely to be more than the cost of hauling fuel overland.
Divert all the money away from the war lords. In the next year have the farmers grow something like jatropha beans -- or whatever.
Then announce the war aims.
Destroy AQ & we will give you the oil refineries and leave.
Well that would be too easy. There would be too much incentive to cheat. ie not get all of AQ or start growing poppies again. So some protections would have to be built in–so as to ensure that AQ is done and they don't start growing poppies again.
well, it might be be too much to ask the warlords to kill AQ. It would be enough to just have them give their coordinates.
doesn’t sound like you read the article.
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