....Afghanistan?

[size=4]Military opposes spraying poppies[/size=4]
By Bill Gertz, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The U.S. military is opposing Bush administration plans to conduct crop eradication in Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation in the coming weeks will net millions of dollars for Taliban and al Qaeda drug runners, U.S. officials say.

The military officials, including representatives of the U.S. Central Command, have argued in interagency meetings that attacking Afghanistan's poppy fields is a nonmilitary function that should be left to others.
   
Proponents of the effort, in the White House and State Department, want the Pentagon to send special aircraft to drop herbicide on Afghanistan's poppy fields before the opium-producing plants are harvested in the next four to six weeks.
   
"This is asymmetrical warfare, and it would be a prudent force-protection measure," said a U.S. official close to the debate.
   
The money obtained from Afghanistan's poppy harvest will fuel the guerrilla war that is expected to escalate against U.S. and allied forces in the coming months.
   
The money from the poppies also will bolster anti-U.S. elements in the Pakistani ISI intelligence service, the officials said.
   
"If this opium is harvested and permitted to go to market, it will re-empower the negative elements in Pakistan's security service and lead to instability in Pakistan," the official said. "And it will fund a new round of international terrorism."
     
A National Security Council spokesman had no comment, noting that the subject is part of an ongoing internal debate.
   
Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has rejected the idea of using U.S. military forces for poppy crop eradication, according to a Pentagon official.
   
"That's not our mission," an official quoted Gen. Franks as saying.
   
Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson told Congress on March 12 that the DEA has obtained "multisource information" linking al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, to heroin trafficking.
   
"The very sanctuary previously enjoyed by bin Laden was based on the existence of the Taliban's drug state, whose economy was exceptionally dependent on opium," Mr. Hutchinson said.
   
Afghanistan produced over 70 percent of the world supply of illicit opium in 2000, and U.S. officials said the current crop is expected to be large.
   
A DEA intelligence report in September said that Afghanistan produced 74 metric tons of opium from 4,162 acres of poppy fields last year.
   
The opium produced was significantly less than in 2000, when 3,656 metric tons of opium were produced from 64,510 hectares of land that year.
   
- continued -

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who was ousted during U.S. military operations in December, issued a decree in July 2000 banning poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. He ordered the militia to eradicate any poppy fields under Taliban control.
   
The State Department, which is in charge of nonmilitary policies toward Afghanistan, has been unable to purchase the special aircraft required to spray herbicide on the poppies, the officials said.
   
One option under consideration is to purchase two Air Tractor aerial spraying aircraft and send them to Afghanistan. The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants.
   
But the State Department was slow to take steps to arrange the aircraft purchase, so the aircraft cannot be procured until August — well after the poppy fields have been harvested and the material turned into opium and heroin.
   
The DEA intelligence report said "numerous" laboratories are located in Afghanistan and Pakistan and there are "significant" numbers of opium dealers in the Jalalabad and Ghani Khel areas.
   
The laboratories are known to be located in Afghanistan's northwest border areas of Kunduz and Badakhstan provinces.
   
Military officials are said to have opposed the crop-spraying plan as being too risky in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters still pose a threat.
   
Most of the drug-producing crops are located in Afghanistan's Helmand, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Lowgar provinces.
   
Administration officials also are upset that the Central Command did not conduct bombing raids against opium warehouses in Afghanistan during the military campaign that began Oct. 7.
   
The facilities went unscathed after legal advisers at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., determined the opium storehouses were not legitimate military targets.
   
Interim government leader Hamid Karzai has continued the Taliban ban on poppy growing. Mr. Karzai also has sought international support for anti-drug efforts in the country.
   
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported last week that Afghan farmers have begun cultivating poppy fields. Brig. Gen. Mehdi Abouei, chief of Iran's counter-drug efforts, said on March 18 that poppy cultivation is increasing since the U.S.-led bombing campaign and could result in a crop of up to 2,500 ton of opium this season.

See article at:[url]http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020325-52778.htm[/url]

Eric The(Well?)Hun[>]:)]

Hi HUNny....this is such a joke..to answer your question first...nope. Now on to discussion...
"The very sanctuary previously enjoyed by bin Laden was based on the existence of the Taliban's drug state, whose economy was
exceptionally dependent on opium," Mr. Hutchinson said. This quote is hilarious, we were giving the Talibabies lot's of money because theyu WERE not growing poppies, now the Feds say that they were?

IMO, there is no good that will come from growing these plants and harvesting the crops.

I guess my answer is "YES".



Tyler

probably a good idea. but didnt we try this in burma (miranmar?) laos and cambodia?

Spray um.  YES

Ever been on any opiates before (i.e. morphine, heroin (hope not), oxycodone, or synthetic ones like demerol)?

I'm sure the military over there just wants some nice drug induced R&R after all the hard work they put in. [:)]

And everyone knows afganistan's national flower is the poppy. [:)]

Robby

Should US Military Eradicate Poppies in....

my wife's garden?  I'd really miss the fresh poppy seeds on the bread my wife bakes.z

wouldn't you think we had a few spare daisy cutters or some napalm that we could use.  
if he is the cmdr in cheeze, couldn't the prez 'ask' dod to find a few spares?
the drugs are a means to finance the terrorists after they celebrate the harvest, why help finance the future death of Americans.
burn 'em.

Eradicate away! Absolutely!

I'd suggest using napalm, though, for that *extra special* touch.

It probably wouldn't matter in the long run, though, as we just *love* our drugs.  It would, however, make an interesting statement.

Post from hound -

Why not? Course, this is just for discussion's sake!

Not 'were', but 'are.' Big difference.

Mistakes were made....so what?

Are we bound to continue repeating the same old mistakes, time after time?

Eric The(ExcellentLearningCurve)Hun[>]:)]

Flying low and slow to spray the fields would make the aircraft easy targets.  How many pilots would we be willing to sacrifice for this mission?

Post from renamed -

Who said anything about 'spraying' defoliants?

I think most folks thought 'napalm', actually!

Flying 'fast and furious' should do the trick!

Or I gues we could 'spray' from C-130 gunships![:D]

Eric The(CallIt'LeadRain')Hun[>]:)]

how many are we willing to sacrifice there and in the U.S. with attacks financed by the drug trade?
This is war and they use drugs as a weapon.

Doesn't matter what they are willing to do. They're flying for the American Military, not American Airlines. While some may not like it, they will do it, because it goes with the job.

From the article:



I guess we only *wish* it was napalm...

Too bad our nation has such a schizophrenic drug policy.  We fight like hell on the consumer side, yet seem to avoid wonderful opportunities on the supply side like this one.

You all are fools,
you really think the government wants the drug war to end??

You think we want to piss off our allies over there making the stuff?

c-rock

wait for them to go out and start harvesting then napalm it

Sure they'll do it.  Members of the armed services will do all sorts of risky missions if ordered to do so.

The question is, is the risk worth it?  Not "worth it" for the pilots, but "worth it" for those who give the orders and will be responsible for the consequences.  

BTW, with regard to the napalm idea, that won't fly for the simple reason that no one in the chain of command wants to see crispy little Afghan kids on TV.  Innocent victims of napalm = propaganda coup for the bad guys.

Why not just buy the lot from the farmers? Probably be cheaper.

Can you imagine the headlines? "U.S. Bombs Farms of Innocent Afgans."

I don't want to sound like a wuss, but can you imagine the enemies we'd make after that one?

I'm not sure who the eradicators should be, but I think the poppy fields should be burned to the dirt by someone.  The Taliban and al-queda should not get the chance to use the profits of the drugs they would produce to harm any more people in this world.

Should the U.S. military be required to eradicate the Poppies ?  
To me that answer is no.

Should the Poppies be eradicated ?  
Probably yes.

MarineGrunt has the 'least-cost' solution both in terms of pilots lives and simple dollars.  Pay the farmers to plant something else.
Now because this solution is least-cost, that virtually insures this will not be the chosen path.

poison the soil

no more crops, ever.

The farmers know what they are doing. They should face the consequences.

Frankly, we are talking about spraying, But it's a far cry from the Agent Orange of the past, Acualy we'er talking about using garden variety Round Up in realy large quantities.

Even if we did still produce Napalm, it would take far more Nape than we could make, to go after the poppy fields, we are talking about an area larger than the state of Vermont in square miles.

Yes, Spray the heck out of the fields. this is not Vietnam, They Attacked American soil.

If we do not destroy the fields NOW, Then we will be losing American soldiers to Taliban insurgents financed by this years crop for the next four years...

it's as simple as that.

To the best of my knowledge no country including Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States has ever successfully stopped a black market.

The drug black market will not be the first.