#1 Military spending not the only thing costing us in Afghanistan
Posted: Sun, 19 Feb 17, 18:18 pm
Wonders of wonders, our trying to impose our drug ethics on another people is not working. Especially on people in such straights as the Afghani people have it.
1.) perform air strikes using agent orange on the fields containing poppy cultivation. (more good money after bad?)
2.) totally pull out of the drug war in Afghanistan. Don't fund any addiction help. Leave them to their own devices and spend the money on better interdiction of drug smuggling to the U.S. of A.
full article
The way I see it, we have one of two choices.The U.S. government’s multi-billion-dollar effort to counter narcotics in Afghanistan is a humiliating failure that’s resulted in a huge increase in poppy cultivation and opium production. Despite the free-flow of American tax dollars to combat the crisis, opium production rose 43% in the Islamic nation, to an estimated 4,800 tons, and approximately 201,000 hectares of land are under poppy cultivation, representing a 10% increase in one year alone.
Uncle Sam’s embarrassing counter narcotics effort is part of a broader and costly failure involving the reconstruction of Afghanistan. More than $100 billion have been dedicated to help rebuild the war-torn country and much of it has been lost to waste, fraud and abuse not to mention corruption. The drug initiative is a recent example, documented by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in a quarterly report to Congress. The document linkis painful to read because it goes on for 269 pages, but Judicial Watch created a link for the counter narcotics section, which is around 19 pages and includes informative charts, graphs and the latest available statistics.
As of December 31, 2016, the United States has spent an astounding $8.5 billion for counter narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2002, the report reveals, making it clear that the cash will continue flowing. “Nonetheless, Afghanistan remains the world’s leading producer of opium, providing 80% of the global output over the past decade, according to the United Nations,” SIGAR writes. The watchdog includes statistics from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) confirming a 10% increase in the amount of Afghan land that was under poppy cultivation between 2015 and 2016. Despite Uncle Sam’s generosity, poppy eradiation results were the lowest this decade, the watchdog states. “No eradication took place in the biggest opium-growing provinces because of the grave security situation,” the report reveals, noting a steady rise in production and cultivation in the past decade. “Eradication efforts have had minimal impact on the rise in illicit opium cultivation.”
1.) perform air strikes using agent orange on the fields containing poppy cultivation. (more good money after bad?)
2.) totally pull out of the drug war in Afghanistan. Don't fund any addiction help. Leave them to their own devices and spend the money on better interdiction of drug smuggling to the U.S. of A.
full article