Top Military Officer Urges Major Change in Afghanistan Strategy

Washington Post ^ | September 11, 2008 | Ann Scott Tyson

[bukkdems]

It seems that Afghans have embraced the Taliban because of our policies against opium. You cannot destroy their crops and expect to be popular. The Taliban have a comfy income protecting the crops.

The Senlis Council in London has proposed setting up legal poppy crops and a pharmaceutical plant. Legal poppy farming already occurs in Turkey and India. Certainly, the third world needs more and cheaper painkillers. I don’t think we will ever win in Afghanistan if we don’t get on the good foot, i.e. become their friends instead of busting them.

http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/P4M

[neverdem]

Thanks for the link.

Subsidizing the Enemy - Helping lose the war in Afghanistan

I thought I posted this. Maybe it was yanked?

[Marine_Uncle]

I think he is just being quiet to a point where whatever went on in those discussion on the carrier are being held secret.

[freema]

I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not gonna : )

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem. The Washington Post buried the lead of course:

On the day after President Bush announced he will cut troops in Iraq and bolster them in Afghanistan between now and early 2009...

The fight has to be taken to Iran and Saudi Arabia. The problem is, they don't share a border. We really needed to get those two countries fighting about seven years ago, and wipe out Saddam as the first step in that struggle. Then sell arms and ammo to both sides.

Violence has mounted for more than two years in Afghanistan from an increasingly sophisticated and brazen insurgency, one fueled by havens in Pakistan.

We need to bleed them to death, and part one is to cut off the flow of cash; part two involves a covert effort to "recruit" fighters, pay their way to the "training camp", and shoot them as they get out of the bus.

[Fred Nerks]

ooooh...I like that last line. When I become a benign dictator of the world, will you work for me?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, I’ll definitely take the job. ;’) The reason for the two steps is, eliminating the funding doesn’t mean there aren’t wackos wanting to go to jihad. Once the jihadist funding is eliminated, providing an apparent new source of it means the jihadists are 100 per cent reliant on the fake. :’)