Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Lets not dress the Taliban up in clothes that are not theirs. They are primarily a mercenary force being paid (partially out of the proceeds of the drug trade) and using nationalism and a bunch of other reasons to cover this in a shroud of patriotism. The first step would be to put the word out (and to scale up for it) that there will be no poppy crop next year come hell or high water. The failure to address the poppy and drug issues in Afghanistan will go down as the single most insane US political decision of this war. Still waiting to see how far the corruption has spread in this regard.
Well, you're dressing the Taliban up in clothes that aren't theirs with this statement. None of the insurgent profiles, intsums, or debriefs I saw ever indicated that this was a narco-uprising/narco-insurgency. Remember, this movement is run by the same people who a decade ago nearly ended the poppy harvest - to claim that their existence parallels the poppy market is inaccurate.