Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[davidbfpo]

Does anyone really know the acreage involved in poppy growing? Why not let the farmer grow his opium crop, pay him fair market value then destroy it when it is half grown and can't be salvaged? Farmer gets his money for only half his labor and doesn't hate America. The Taliban has to extort him to replace their opium income that has been destroyed. Major drug dealers are replaced as fast as they go down - its market driven and the money runs up into the echelons of politics, any cop knows that, what Holbrooke means is popping some of the middle men, which looks good in print.

Goesh,

The alternative you pose has appeared here before, IIRC on several threads, usually on decriminalise / alternatives and very recently when comparisons were drawn between legal growing in the West and illegal in Afg. Try this long running thread: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=1234 I know you've been there!

I am sure the acreage used in Afg is in the public domain, the UN Drug Control programme and I'd try this: help: http://davidmansfield.org/index.php
Which has ots of reports on eradication and other counter-narcotic policies (mainly in Afghanistan) on a quick visit.

Gretchen Peters has written on this theme too: http://gretchenpeters.org/ .

davidbfpo