Posted on 08/23/2017 4:21:32 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus
What is it we are doing in Afghanistan? What do we think we are doing in Afghanistan? All we can say with any confidence is that the former and the latter bear only a theoretical relationship. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and many of his associates were thought to be holed up there under the protection and the patronage of the Taliban, the jihadist militia cum narcotics syndicate that controlled Afghanistan at the time. U.S. forces marched in, toppled the Taliban, and installed a client regime under Hamid Karzai, a wildly corrupt and borderline incompetent leader who was, all things considered, probably the best we could do at the time. We eventually had a falling out with Karzai and his government, and Afghan democracy — “democracy” — moved on. The country has remained in a slow-motion civil war, with the Taliban waxing and waning conversely with U.S. interest in this unhappy little corner of the world. The NATO occupation and other foreign spending accounts for the lion’s share of Afghanistan’s formal economy; the lion’s share of the real economy is producing opium for the heroin trade, a field in which Afghanistan enjoys a 90 percent share of the world market. We spent millions of dollars importing Italian goats into Afghanistan, hoping to create a thriving cashmere-production industry. The goats went missing and were “presumed eaten,” according to Newsweek. Worse things have happened to goats. This week, President Trump gave a speech on Afghanistan, in which he said that his initial instinct was to pull out but that his military advisers had persuaded him to step up the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I have not read NRO for several years, so I'm not familiar with Williamson.
But I do agree with him - it's time to walk away from ALL “nation building” projects in the Third World.
The Third World does not care about liberty, tolerance, the rule of law, or economic development - which explains why they are part of the Third World.
I think Rumsfeld said that we need to fight them over there, so we won’t have to fight them over here.
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That might have some validity if we were not importing them daily.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and many of his associates were thought to be holed up there...
Corrected version: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and many of his associates were holed up there...
And then Bush promptly brought in thousands of Iraqi “refugees”. He started the Muslim invasion of the US, and Obama was happy to continue and expand it. The threat is here, Islam in the US. We should pull our troops out of the Middle East and let the Muslims have their fights there. We don’t accomplish anything there. If we destroy ISIS or the Taliban, another group will rise to take their place, because the problem is Islam.
So what it if attracts Muslims from the US and Europe? Just don’t let them come back. If they want to fight in their own third world dumps, let them. Keep them out of civilized countries. Not going to happen, you say? Then we will continue along the path of futile war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. because the problem is Islam, and the only possible victory would be the destruction of Islam. How is that possible?
A very talented writer, loved his essays when he first came aboard NR - got quite full of himself pretty quick, though.
He is now a bore. And a hateful one at that.
Actually, no I am not wrong.
As far as the U.S. heroin use is it does not matter which country produces the most, it’s FROM WHICH COUNTRY does heroin in the U.S. arrive. It has been increasingly coming from Mexico, and growing there is increasing as well.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/america-s-heroin-epidemic-starts-in-mexico
Actually, no I am not wrong.
As far as the U.S. heroin use is it does not matter which country produces the most, it’s FROM WHICH COUNTRY does heroin in the U.S. arrive. It has been increasingly coming from Mexico, and growing there is increasing as well.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/america-s-heroin-epidemic-starts-in-mexico
Actually, no I am not wrong.
As far as the U.S. heroin use is it does not matter which country produces the most, it’s FROM WHICH COUNTRY does heroin in the U.S. arrive. It has been increasingly coming from Mexico, and growing there is increasing as well.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/america-s-heroin-epidemic-starts-in-mexico
Did you even read the posted article, or my comment, or the links you posted?
You wrote: “There is a sweet spot for growing opium in Mexico for growing the opium producing poppy and the drug cartels in Mexico have moved into it.”
Then, you link to a Vice.com article that says Afghanistan produces 85% of the world opium crop, and that Mexico produces 2%.
In a later comment you wrote: “As far as the U.S. heroin use is it does not matter which country produces the most, it’s FROM WHICH COUNTRY does heroin in the U.S. arrive.”
That’s almost exactly what I wrote in my Comment #18, which you attacked.
I said maybe Mexico is the major source “for transport and distribution,” but there’s no way it’s a major source for poppies.
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