Still, I'd like to one day read a cogent analysis (from someone better informed than I) about the global drug trade's role in this.
Remembering that Afghanistan/Pakistan is the center of the world's production of opium and our own government's well-documented dalliances with the Indochinese opium trade, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the actual "distribution system" being carefully monitored and maintained.
But I still admire your thinking on this.
But entangling is the joy of diplomat-niks and ever more so, a western business "school of thought:" That economically - multi-linked - regions must deal with each other instead of shoot each other, and so by such entangling "bidness arrangements" ... "world peace" can be affected.
It's a very popular theory among global - investor - "thinkers."
Except it overlooks the older "popularity" of utilizing martial coercion which remains as a "weapon of choice" among various of the world's cultures: In the absence of a peaceful plan for getting what you want, stir up trouble in your opponent's back yard.
Such "tradition" is infamous for being employed by "expert" minds which think they've "got a handle on it," but historically have proven that they do not ... resulting in the later sorrow of moms and dads whose kids have to go off to war to correct the errors manifested by said "expert" "policy-makers."
No thanks.
To fight the Axis of Terrorism, requires that political and business leaders submit to the determination of the American people to prosecute the bad guys. Engage the Arsenal of Democracy. Gear up production of necessary material. Get our tranport capacity up to speed. And train the 100's of thousands of personnel we need.
We need fire engine production to double by the end of October.
We need 10,000 pilots in the training pipeline.
We need 20 mainline U.S. Army armored divisions in the pipeline.
We need three times the number of current police, fire, and emergency medial personnel ... to begin training as volunteers at each of the country fairgrounds (or other suitable location) immediately. We need these reserve battalions, now! Not after the next two attacks!
We need the fire departments to post guards over their equipment.
Our numerour fuel tanker-truck farms and routes need observers. We should be checking the IDs of all oil and gas transportation personnel, coming and going.
By the way, airports should be check people getting off the planes as well as on the planes.
The airports should have perimeter watch towers.
Our schools need volunteers, retirees, parents to operate on 2 hour shifts, as perimeter observers. And the schools should all have those concrete highway barriers blocking off any possible routes toward the facilities where a Taliban "warrior" with a fire engine loaded with fuel might try to crash into the school.
But no; not much of what is required in wartime, is on the minds of our "experts."
Instead, they want to send in the special forces and confiscate your pen knife.
President Bush could light up this country by giving an "Arsenal of Democracy" speech, and propose that we use our blessed strengths, instead of listening to all the "experts" whose "thinking" is absurdly, near - constantly, about suppressing the little people and trying to prevent a panic.
Well ... I suggest that we panic NOW! And GET WITH THE PROGRAM!
Taliban burned one-year worth of opium crop. It is said that 2 years' worth of crop are avialable in stockpiles. Serious supply crisis for the heroin trade and those who control it.