Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Obviously the Opium pipeline is complex, and it is a multi-billion dollar business that all kinds of fingers are jammed deeply into. This won't be resolved overnight, and it also is neither the cause nor the cure for the insurgency.

We need to set our Puritanical value system on the shelf for a few months and pragmatically focus on what we need to focus on to produce the effects we need to achieve.

Besides, most of the guys who own the crops are share croppers, with the land owners living in the cities. Key is to engage poppy-related targets in a manner that doesn't alianate your target audiance (the populace); and that hinders insurgency. Mostly in going after dope though I think you just mess with the big business drug guys, and who know's what kind of dunghills that could kick open. The TB goes door to door and collects what it needs.

Anyway, I think drugs and corruption both are bad, but also are neither one particularly material to immediate COIN effects. To focus on them is to be distracted from things that are much more important.
Well said. Is what I put in bold universally understood? It seems to be of big significance.