"Taliban kill 5 Afghans," from the Pakistan Daily Times, with thanks to
Nicolei:
KANDAHAR: Suspected Taliban militants ambushed and killed five Afghans working on a United States-funded project to end opium farming on Wednesday, said senior provincial official Ghulam Muhiddin.The workers were attacked as they drove through Helmand province, said Muhiddin. Two of the victims were engineers working for Chemonics, a US-based company; one was a government engineer and the other two were a driver and a policeman employed as a security guard, he said. "Police are investigating the killings and are searching for the Taliban attackers," Muhiddin said. Carol Yee, a senior Chemonics worker in the area, confirmed the killings. She said the men were working on a project to provide alternative livelihoods to farmers growing opium, the raw material for heroin. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent in Afghanistan by various organisations to persuade farmers to grow legal crops.
Afghanistan last year produced nearly 90 percent of the world's opium, sparking warnings that it is fast becoming a dangerous "narcotics-state" less than four years after the end of its role as a haven for Al Qaeda.
Becoming?
In the name of Allah
All praise is due to god alone who has no partner and no equal. May God's peace and blessings be upon our beloved prophet. To proceed:
It is a fact of historical record that is easily verifiable through ap and reuters archives that the taliban banned the farming of opium. They made it a criminal offense two years befor we invaded their country but allowed the final crop to be harvested the year befor we invaded...after which there was no more allowed to be planted or harvested in the region controlled by them.
However, the northern alliance in afghanistan continued to produce it as they were independant of the taliban's control.
So the year that we invaded is the very year that there was to be no more opium produced by afghanistan but lo and behold, the first thing we did to stabilixze the economy upon our arrival was to give free bushels of opium seeds. 'we' here means the U.S..
Now, I want to repeat for any nay sayyers, This was reported not by any islamic source but the associated press and reuters dureing the periods of their occurences!!! Being from baltimore, i read the articles in the baltimore sun...and often qouted these articles to show one of the reasons i feel we invaded a soveriegn nation.
Now i know that last statement may bother some being that bin laden was there, however, bush demanded an unconditional handover of bin laden and Mullah umar said 'give the evidence and we will try him accordingly'. Bush demanded an unconditional release a second time and mullah Umar said, 'give us the evidence and we will hand him over to a muslim nation to try him'. Bush demanded an unconditional handover for the third time and mullah umar said, 'hand over the evidence and we will hand him over to a neutral country for trial'. (after all bin laden did make a pledge to Mullah Umar that for his safety and security inside afghanistan he would not plan or launch any strikes while he was a resident there and after sept. 11 Bin laden swore by God he was in no way involved in the attack...at all! so based on this, it is reasonable to believe that mullah umar trusted his innocents and had the right to demand evidence as a condition for a hand over.)
Instead America invaded a soveriagn nation, put in power the northern alliance and aided them in their #1 production...i.e. opium.
And all of what I said is not from islamic sources But from sound reports within the ap and reuters!!!(except for the pledge between bin laden and mullah umar which is also well authenticated in non-american news resources)
Anyone who is angry about this post, i implere them to research the facts before they make any attacks as I have only written what is matter of fact and well recorded.
Thank you all for your time.
It would make more sense to simply let the opium poppy farmers grow it, then the U.S. government troops could go in and buy the crop, take it to a nearby incinerator and destroy it. That way the farmers would have some cash to rebuild their country, the U.S. military would be a friend and not a mechanically and moralistically simplistic opponent, and the crop would never get to be processed into heroin in Marseilles or Pakistan, and the Mafia middlemen worldwide would be frustrated.
Instead, it is the old, tedious and discredited idea of 'eradicate the crop'. Nothing else would grow there except cannabis (another hardy plant in harsh climes) that would get the farmers any real money. (And, except for export to countries of the EU who have legalized pot, there's little chance of that crop 'substitute' being allowed.)
Blinkered thinkers leading us into deeper sh*t seems to be all this current 'strategic plan' is getting us.
Bill-
You're a (delusional?) liar. Osama (Bin, Looney) admitted on several videos that he was behind 9/11 (AFTER he was thrown out of Afghanistan, when it was 'safe' to stop his strategic lying). (Something you seem to be adept at, as well.)
Mullah Umar was a psychotic patriarchal scum, and I believe anything he ever said about as much as I believe your concern and sincerity -or reuters.