Marines ignore Taliban cash crop to not upset Afghan locals

AP on Yahoo ^ | 5/6/08 | Jason Straziuso - ap

[NormsRevenge]

A Catch-22?

U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, patrols through a poppy field near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Thursday May 1, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

[NormsRevenge]

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Stover, whose platoon is sleeping beside a poppy crop planted in the interior courtyard of a mud-walled compound, said the Marines’ mission is to get rid of the “bad guys,” and “the locals aren’t the bad guys.”

“Poppy fields in Afghanistan are the cornfields of Ohio,” said Stover, 28, of Marion, Ohio. “When we got here they were asking us if it’s OK to harvest poppy and we said, ‘Yeah, just don’t use an AK-47.’”

—

Godspeed to you, Sgt., and all your fellow Marines.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

A simple act of defiance would make this irrelevant.If Americans would stop using heroin - it wouldn’t be a problem. Same for inner city crack users, etc., etc., etc.

[rocksblues]

This article sort of puts some Steam into Rev. Jeremiah Wrights statements!

[Wolfie]

Looking the other way when the “good guys” are involved has long been part and parcel of the Drug War.

[Bender2]

Chesty Puller is rolling over in his grave!

[Resolute Conservative]

Didn’t you know it is a CIA conspiracy to keep minorities down. We can’t make them quit. :)

[avacado]

A lot of the heroin goes to Iran. That's good! We are fighting a war, not plants.

[SF Republican]

I don’t think Chesty would mind, he didn’t mind troublemakers - one of his quotes:

“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the real Marines.”

[avacado]

The Taliban,... derives up to $100 million a year from the poppy harvest by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees — money that will buy weapons for use against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.

Destroy the crops and the growers become the Taliban. Just keep killing the damn Taliban.

[MD_Willington_1976]

hmmm.. can we make gasoline out of poppies?

LOL

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Yet the Marines are not destroying the plants. In fact, they are reassuring villagers the poppies won't be touched. American commanders say the Marines would only alienate people and drive them to take up arms if they eliminated the impoverished Afghans' only source of income.

Buying drugs --bad. Growing drugs --good.

Bush Tars Drug Takers With Aiding Terrorists:

The US government is stepping up its attempt to link the war on drugs and the war on terrorism.

Its office of national drug control policy is running advertisements which tell Americans that by buying drugs they may be financing terrorists - "whether you're shooting heroin, snorting cocaine, taking Ecstasy or sharing a joint in your friend's back yard"

Bush: Afghanistan is a victory over terrorism:

Both in the Rose Garden and in his address to a joint meeting of Congress, Karzai acknowledged a growing problem with drug trafficking -- used by some warlords to raise money for more weapons. Afghanistan is "adamant," Karzai said, about ending the drug problem.

"Drug profits undermine our efforts to build a health national economy," he told Congress. "... We are determined to cleanse Afghanistan of this menace."

[TexasCajun]

A simple act of defiance would make this irrelevant.

America is hardly their only customer.

[shamusotoole]

Perhaps it is time to send less food aid. Increased demand for domestically grown crops would mean less arable land devoted to poppies, no?

[paddles]

Concur. He’d want to kill the Talib and leave the farming to the dandys from Washington.

[B4Ranch]

I’d lay decent odds that we could buy the entire Afghanistan crop and come out money ahead on criminal and medical costs here at home. Then teach the natives to grow another crop, such as corn or wheat.

[NormsRevenge]

as is happening in Iraq with Maliki using more and more Iraqi force on the Mahdi Army insurgents, hopefully Karzai will seek to do the same, we can only hope.

I won’t comment on PR wars/campaigns run over the years. T’wouldn’t be prudent.

[Jack Black]

We are fighting a war, not plants. Actually the War on Drugs predates the War on Terror by several decades. The WOD is essentially a war on some plants. ,

What are we doing in Afghanistan, again? Preventing one of the tribal groups from running the country and helping a different one run the country?

[Ronin]

That actually makes a lot of sense to me. Let them grow it, sell it to us. We stockpile the raw opium and sell it to pharmaceutical companies which use it legally. The farmers get the bread, the companies get the morphine which they use legitimately, the druggies get squat.

Hell, given what food prices are doing recently, it might not be too long before corn and wheat pay more than poppies.