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Winning hearts and minds by cutting our own throat in all kinds of ways.
"US Spares Afghan Crop that Funds Enemy," from the Associated Press, May 7 (thanks to DFS):
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....
Good luck with that.
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....
And where do you think this heroin ends up?
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....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."...
Bad guys. This is actually how they talk, because of course they are forbidden to name the enemy. So they're reduced to playground language.
Posted by Robert at May 8, 2008 4:54 AM
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Again we enable our own destruction. IF the locals want to grow it, they ought to use it.
Posted by: lonewolf![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 8, 2008 6:51 AM
Bad guys. Yes, that is how they actually
talk, and maybe there is a diktat for
press liaisons.
I would call it a two syllable gallows humor
reference to the generic military adversary,
suitable for general audiences.
North Korea -- bad guys.
China, sometimes bad guys.
Peru has bad guy insurgents.
in addition to a whole lotta bad guys
worldwide motivated and unified by Islam.
Sometimes the bad guys work together:
North Korea in Syria?!
So if our pointy ends refer to bad guys in
the "bad place" (another term of art), I
would not complain about the lingo.
ocelot
Posted by: Ocelot at May 8, 2008 6:54 AM
The "bad guys" is part of the wilful infantilization of language, and thus of thought, that can be seen all around us. Listen to radio talk shows, where blabbing hosts and guests make reference, for example, to what they keep calling "the N-word." And no one mocks this. No one appears even to notice. Not a word is said over milk and graham crackers, nor later, at Quiet Time, when we are all lying on our blankies.
Posted by: Hugh at May 8, 2008 7:43 AM
they could say , "the bad guys formerly known as Muslims".
Posted by: pulsar182 at May 8, 2008 8:14 AM
Why we don't just buy the poppies outselves, and simply mulch them as compost off scene, preventing their refinement into herion, and thereby keeping the Taliban out of the money/influence/pusher cycle, is what I've been emailing government functionaries about for years, now.
No answers in reply.
at May 8, 2008 10:46 AM
"Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields."
Did anyone expect to read these lines after 9-11?
I was told if we left Iraq or Afghanistan that it would hand a MAJOR victory to Islam and to left wing hippies! Yep, we are showing them! Smack those opium bulbs!
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 8, 2008 10:59 AM
blood for opium?
Posted by: lonewolf at May 8, 2008 12:57 PM
"Heroin is peace"
Posted by: Charles Bogle at May 8, 2008 2:22 PM
Morons! Why not help Afghans learn how to create an economy through innovative thinking and creativity? Why not shut down madrassas and replace them with schools that teach math, history and science so they can get a real education and compete in the real world? For crying out loud, there are so many ways to help them.
Is our government really this stupid? (Rhetorical question).
at May 8, 2008 9:33 PM
Might I suggest that US and NATO $ will be better spent buying the crop for a top price that beats the Taliban.
Here in Australia, in Tasmania to be precise, poppy crops are grown for medical purposes and creating opiate medications. Not only can the US & NATO use the crop - but think of the money you save fighting drugs on our own soil, stopping the health care costs of addiction, reducing the costs of fighting the war on terror. Even if $5 billion was spent I bet the nett benefit would be twice as much to the West.
Lets get the Afghans on side - eliminate Taliban recruitment, dry up Taliban funds, make our own societies healthier and win this "war"!
PS - to all our US comrades, the rest of us in the Anglo-diaspora like to cut you down to size a bit, I think a little bit of that is healthy so that the US keeps a bit of humility and perspective - but this relentless US bashing has to stop. We should show unity and strength. I am sick of these lefty protestors who have a go at the US re human rights, yet they don't have the balls to protest about China, Egypt, Libya, Burma, Colombia, Zimbabwe etc. Would they rather Iran be in control than the US? Would they rather have Jintao than Bush? Get a life! Canadians, New Zealanders, British, Americans - let us remember our strong historical, cultural and social ties - we are brothers & sisters. It's alright to pull each other into line now and then (can you yanks please take back Starbucks!)but we must remember not to attack each other in ways that we saw here in Sydney at the APEC summit - otherwise the terrorists will win!
Posted by: vercingetorix at May 8, 2008 9:55 PM
Before 9/11, weren't we giving money to our Taliban "puppets" to eradicate the undergroung poppy crop? Yet the islamo-vermin always have time to cry about how insidious western culture is to their moral purity, yet they think it's okay to push their hard drugs on us. You don't have to be a liberal to think that Bush is really shallow and stupid.
Posted by: Dumbo at May 8, 2008 11:17 PM
Why we don't just buy the poppies outselves, and simply mulch them as compost off scene, preventing their refinement into herion, and thereby keeping the Taliban out of the money/influence/pusher cycle, is what I've been emailing government functionaries about for years, now.
No answers in reply.
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 8, 2008 10:46 AM
I was just about to offer the same solution when I saw your comment. What is wrong with the people running this show?! The drugs manufactured from this poppy crop will end up on the streets of America but I guess that's better than destroying the poor poppy growers' only source of revenue! We need a steady influx of street drugs anyway so the hardworking people in the FDA, DEA, HLS, Customs, and the valiant warriors in the War on Drugs will have jobs. How long have we been fighting the War on Drugs, about thirty years? That's another war we'll never win; how could we when our own government aids and abets the producers of illegal drugs?
Why can't these farmers grow food crops instead of poppies? Oh, I forgot, we feed them. So it's a win-win proposition for the Taliban, a lose-lose proposition for us, and our soldiers are fighting and dying for this insanity. It gets crazier every day.
at May 10, 2008 12:57 AM
Profitsbeard & Vercingetorix: RIGHT ON!!! (And thanx for the kudos on human rights, Vercingetorix! We're sure not perfect but we DO publicly admit our short-comings, instead of hiding them.)
SusanP: We DID try converting the farming, in Afganistan, to innocous crops, but the new crops were far less profitable. Unfortunately, the climate there is optimely suited for opium cultivation!
I think that we should circumvent the Taliban's profits by paying the going price and diverting the crops to supply the LEGITIMATE world demand for opium derivitives. The terrorists lose funding, the farmers can support their families, the illicit drug supply is crippled and the opium goes to supply legal market demands. I honestly can't see a down side, considering the world health cost savings, in less drug addiction!
FYI: I'm not merely "purpounding from my ivory tower". Thru the VA, I was addicted to morphine for 22 months. (During which, VA screwed up my refills FIVE times!) I can speak, first-hand, of the horrors of addiction. And of going "cold turkey". No words can do justice......
at May 10, 2008 4:02 PM
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