A Possible Legitimate Use for Opium?
New Scientist - Grass-munching bugs could charge rural phones
Quote:
To tackle the problem, a team of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, US, has designed a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that runs on plant waste. Their prototype won the $5,000 first prize in a contest called MADMEC, which was sponsored by Dow Chemical to encourage new uses of materials that allow alternative or non-traditional sources of energy.
...
MFCs use electrons released by feeding bacteria on sugars, starches, and other organic material, to produce electricity.
War on Drugs / Protect the Poppy
One of the factors that undermines Western involvement in Afghanistan, well at least those who in the frontline, are the occassional pictures of troops amdst fields of opium poppies and the public knowledge the heroin is heading home. Even with opponents of the UK's role this causes bewilderment.
Hence the byline a "War on Drugs" in one place, e.g Caribbean and "Protect the Poppy" in Afghanistan.
Good knows what the impact is on those serving there.
Personally I've long believed we should each year buy the crop and then mix it in bitumen for road construction. When I was in NWFP years ago the UN drug adviser I met reported 3k tones p.a. were being produced in Afghanistan; the only time production dropped was when the Taliban imposed a ban.
davidbfpo
Good Question...Wrong question, but good
Clearly COIN is currently taking precedence, but the reason why that is is complicated.
At ISAF headquarters, the long-term threat of narcotics was (and still is, I assume - I left there last year) clearly recognized. However, the increased violence and decreased Afghan support for NATO pursuant to a serious CN effort had to be avoided. Why? Because the coalition in Afghanistan was barely being held together. Several major contributors were very leery about allowing 'their' region to become more violent. They feared that NATO involvement in CN would lead to their troops becoming targets. Many had caveats specifically exempting them from CN. Therefore, any CN effort had to be Afghan-led and executed, and the Afghans were both unable and unwilling to mount anything more than photo-op missions.
On the other hand, for political reasons and domestic consumption, no one could say that they were going to ignore narcotic trafficking. So you would have statements to the effect that it simply couldn't be tackled until the security situation improved (only partially true in some areas), and the trumpeting of a few 'replacement livelihood' programs that were desperately underfunded and of dubious effectiveness.
The truth is that NATO is unwilling to tackle CN and that some nations are more interested in being seen to participate than they are in actually improving conditions in Afghanistan. The more dedicated NATO members recognize they can only ask so much of their less willing partners if they are to sustain any sort of effort at all. It is not, I believe, the first time that politicians and generals have preferred short-term benefits to long-term gains. These are truths that are unspeakable, of course, which is why you have been unable to get a satisfactory answer to your question.