Excellent! Now we can close ranks... 
and work together to defeat them liberal, no count, traitorous Democrat sumbitches in the Fall!
Posted on 05/06/2008 2:48:33 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
GARMSER, Afghanistan - The Marines of Bravo Company's 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant's gooey resin smile and wave.
Last week, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit moved into southern Helmand province, the world's largest opium poppy-growing region, and now find themselves surrounded by green fields of the illegal plants that produce the main ingredient of heroin.
The Taliban, whose fighters are exchanging daily fire with the Marines in Garmser, 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.
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.
Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.
"It's kind of weird. We're coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it's bad. But at the same time we know it's the only way locals can make money," said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.
The Marines' battalion commander, Lt. Col. Anthony Henderson, said in an interview Tuesday that the poppy crop "will come and go" and that his troops can't focus on it when Taliban fighters around Garmser are "terrorizing the people."
"I think by focusing on the Taliban, the poppies will go away," said Henderson, a 41-year-old from Washington, D.C. He said once the militant fighters are forced out, the Afghan government can move in and offer alternatives.
An expert on Afghanistan's drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a "one-dimensional" military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.
"All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops," said Rubin, a professor at New York University. "Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance."
Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan operate in the east, where the poppy problem is not as great. But the 2,400-strong 24th Marines, have taken the field in this southern growing region during harvest season.
In the poppy fields 100 feet from the 2nd Platoon's headquarters, three Afghan brothers scraped opium resin over the weekend. The youngest, 23-year-old Sardar, said his family would earn little money from the harvest.
"We receive money from the shopkeepers, then they will sell it," said Sardar, who was afraid to give his last name. "We don't have enough money to buy flour for our families. The smugglers make the money," added Sardar, who worked alongside his 11-year-old son just 20 yards from a Marine guard post, its guns pointed across the field.
Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world's opium used to make heroin, and the Taliban militants earn up to $100 million from the drug trade, the United Nations estimates. The export value of this harvest was $4 billion — more than a third of the country's combined gross domestic product.
Though they aren't eradicating poppies, the Marines presence could still have a positive effect. Henderson said the drug supply lines have been disrupted at a crucial point in the harvest. And Marine commanders are debating staying in Garmser longer than originally planned.
Second Lt. Mark Greenlief, 24, a Monmouth, Ill., native who commands the 2nd Platoon, said he originally wanted to make a helicopter landing zone in Sardar's field. "But as you can see that would ruin their poppy field, and we didn't want to ruin their livelihood."
Sardar "basically said, 'This is my livelihood, I have to do what I can to protect that,'" said Greenlief. "I told him we're not here to eradicate."
The Taliban told Garmser residents that the Marines were moving in to eradicate, hoping to encourage the villagers to rise up against the Americans, said 2nd Lt. Brandon Barrett, 25, of Marion, Ind., commander of the 1st Platoon.
In the next field over from Sardar's, Khan Mohammad, an Afghan born in Helmand province who lives in Pakistan and came to work the fields, said he makes only $2 a day. He said the work is dangerous now that Taliban militants are shooting at the U.S. positions.
"We're stuck in the middle," he said. "If we go over there those guys will fire at us. If we come here, we're in danger, too, but we have to work," said the 54-year-old Mohammad, who supports a family of 10.
An even older laborer, his back bent by years of work, came over and told the small gathering of Afghans, Marines and journalists that the laborers had to get back to work "or the boss will get mad at us."
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.'"
Excellent! Now we can close ranks... and work together to defeat them liberal, no count, traitorous Democrat sumbitches in the Fall!
I could only work with someone that is reasonable and that would certainly not include you. You make things up in that pathetic little head of yours that has no bearing on reality.
You say Chesty Puller would condone the drug trade in Afghanistan and you say I have no bearing on reality?
What is apparent here is you may have lived in San Fran way past your expiration date. You may have been Pelosized!
Or you just don't realize nor comprehend nor care what you say--
Play nice, you are funny. Okay listen to me, I was a Marine and I am getting damned tired of you implying I approve or indicated, or said Chesty Puller would approve of drugs. Never on this thread or any post I have ever written indicates such. Now, if you can show me where I SAY CHESTY PULLER would condone the drug trade you show me.
I do care what I say, it is you that have more than one time indicated here I approve of drugs and nothing is further from the truth.
Replying to you was the very last thing on my mind until I received the following e-mail 05/13/2008 7:54:42 AM PDT from you: I see you have no honor. Tell lies about someone on a public forum and then run away. What a coward.
The title of this thread is: "Marines ignore Taliban cash crop to not upset Afghan locals" and the story is how strange it is that the Marines there are ignoring the poppy fields.
Quote from the story above:
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.
Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.
"It's kind of weird. We're coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it's bad. But at the same time we know it's the only way locals can make money," said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.
On post #7 to NormsRevenge I posted: "Chesty Puller is rolling over in his grave!"
To which SF Republican replied in post #10: 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.”
Nowhere in my post #7 did I refer to any Marines in trouble nor did the story mention any Marine troublemakers. So, to me, SF's reply says Chesty would not be upset at the Marines ignoring the drug trade that addicts Americans in the US and gives the Taliban an estimated $100 million a year to buy weapons to kill Marines and other US & NATO troops.
I replied to SF in post #28: Me thinks you have your apples and oranges mixed up!
The 'troublemakers' of that time were not heroin addicts. They were rebellious lifers in the Corps, hard drinkers, men who liked to fight for the hell of it and go their own way when that little wiry hair of their's wanted to see the sun. Those were the 'troublemakers' Chesty called real Marines.
I doubt very seriously that Chesty Puller would approve the drug trade or allowing poppy fields to grow and be processed into an illegal substance to kill Americans at home from addiction and then using the ill gotten funds for more Taliban weapons to the Marines in Afghanistan.
I then tongue in cheek added: Assuming the 'SF' means San Fran... maybe it is time for you to not listen to your neighbors! Their views on drugs appear to be rubbing off on you.
Had SF relied that he did not mean that Colonel Puller approved of the drug trade, but simply added the troublemaker quote for my information, there would have not been any problem. Yet he did not show any sense of humor nor of understanding.
I replied repeating the above points, closing with: So, in the future, old sport, read and comprehend the words and meaning of those words you write as they may show you are the asinine one in this conversation!
SF then double posted #39 and #40 I agree with your tagline. inferring to me 'lets end this thing.'
I replied in post #41 agreement: Excellent! Now we can close ranks... and work together to defeat them liberal, no count, traitorous Democrat sumbitches in the Fall!
Yet, SF would not accept ending this, and poured on the gas! Ending in post #45 calling me a 'damn liar' and then added his e-mail of today that I am without honor and coward for not dropping everything else in my life to devote all my energies to bow down to him asking for forgiveness!
I offered to forget the whole thing in post #41 but SF would have none of it. He want to stay on the warpath.
As I opened with, there are other things much more important than arguing with a fool. I shall leave it to other readers to decide who is who, what, where, when and how here.
I have other thing to take care of...
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