Yes, policy on poppy cultivation is crazy
JMA,
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Effectively the US and British militaries are allowing the poppy cultivation which in effect pays for the components for the IEDs which are killing the majority of US and British troops in the country... and in addition to which much of the resulting heroin ends up on the streets of the US.
No matter which way you look at it it is absolute insanity.
The plain crazy lack of a coherent drugs policy for the UK in Afghanistan has appeared before in different threads, notably this thread: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=1234; on US policy others can comment and we did have a regular poster who was "hands on" 120mm. Check his posts for his viewpoint.
In virtually all UK media reporting poppy cultivation rarely is mentioned, let alone footage of soldiers walking through fields of poppies. I knew there was an exception and hours later found it, Mark Urban from the BBC; a photo only of UK soldiers beside a poppy field:http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight...been_told.html
This is not entirely accurate
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Originally Posted by
davidbfpo
JMA,
Partial quote:
The plain crazy lack of a coherent drugs policy for the UK in Afghanistan has appeared before in different threads, notably this thread:
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=1234; on US policy others can comment and we did have a regular poster who was "hands on" 120mm. Check his posts for his viewpoint.
In virtually all UK media reporting poppy cultivation rarely is mentioned, let alone footage of soldiers walking through fields of poppies. I knew there was an exception and hours later found it, Mark Urban from the BBC; a photo only of UK soldiers beside a poppy field:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight...been_told.html
While it is certainly true that the Coalition is not attacking Poppy at the farmer-level currently (in a system where farmers borrow heavily inadvance on their crops and are ruined if the crops are lost; in a system where the Taliban tax the farmer's heavily regardless of yield; in a system where eradication efforts are all too often employed by shady Police Chiefs who appear to be diligent eradicators to their Western observers, but who the locals all know are only eradicating the crops of their political/economic opponents in an effort that builds their favor with the Coaltion while also builds their relative power in the region.). To attack the populace's livlihood is lose the battle of the narrative with the insurgent.
This does not preclude efforts to attack the product downstream from the farmer. The harvest is concluding in the south, and moves in a clockwise arch across Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan. No amount of targeting dope is going to have a (positive) measureable effect in the timelines allowed the Coalition to show such effects, but could certainly have a negative effect if executed clumsily. And given the lack of true understanding of the complex interconnectivity of the drug business with every other business, to include governance, I don't know how we could be other than "clumsy." Meanwhile, all of the migrant workers fresh from the poppy fields are lookng for work, and the TB has cash for work...