battle for the poppy fields

[lacarnut]

Just an observation; we subsidize crops in this country. Destroy all or half of theirs and pay them not to plant. After all, the farmers are not the ones that are making big money off the crops.

[biccat]

So using that silly analogy - intercity drug dealers, their friends and families should also have that same transition from selling heroin for $5,000 a day on a local ghetto street corner to government job programs as part of our domestic War on Drugs? Bullshit.

Intercity drug dealers don't make $5,000/day. They make about $5/hour. Unfortunately this is the only thing they know how to do, and don't realize that they could be making a lot more money actually working in the employment market.

The drug cartels make all the money, and we are paying them through welfare programs.

[LogansPapa]

Well - getting back to my original point, why are poppy crops all the sudden "BAD" when just last season and ever since 9/11 in fact, they were "OKAY"? Seems like a two-faced policy of pure convenience.

[biccat]

Well - getting back to my original point, why are poppy crops all the sudden "BAD" when just last season and ever since 9/11 in fact, they were "OKAY"? Seems like a two-faced policy of pure convenience.

From 2006:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_ne...5890.stm?(none)

Royal Marines Commandos from Devon have left their base in the county to be deployed to Afghanistan.
A total of 150 men from 42 Commando, based at Bickleigh, near Plymouth, are going to the volatile Helmand province.
...
They will provide security to help Afghan forces fight the drugs trade in the province, one of the main poppy-growing areas.

Also from 2006:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-1231...?refid=gg_x_02

Afghan authorities backed by the United States and Britain launched an aggressive crop-eradication campaign

From 2007:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/...ectid=10460427

Discussing possible new strategies for coping with the record increase in opium production in Afghanistan, Wood said spraying poppy crops with herbicide was a possibility.

So "why are poppy crops all the sudden 'BAD'?" Because the MSM wants something new to smear the United States with. War casualties in Iraq are down, the economy is starting to come out of its slowdown, President Bush is (finally) taking steps to curb gas prices, Barack Obama is getting endorsements from second world dictators, and the Democrat Congress continues to sit on its hands. Good news for the country, bad news for the Democrats, so the MSM has to come up with something new.

Poppies in Afghanistan are the story du jour, so they plaster it all over the news pages.

[lacarnut]

From 2006:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_ne...5890.stm?(none)


So "why are poppy crops all the sudden 'BAD'?" Because the MSM wants something new to smear the United States with. War casualties in Iraq are down, the economy is starting to come out of its slowdown, President Bush is (finally) taking steps to curb gas prices, Barack Obama is getting endorsements from second world dictators, and the Democrat Congress continues to sit on its hands. Good news for the country, bad news for the Democrats, so the MSM has to come up with something new.

Poppies in Afghanistan are the story du jour, so they plaster it all over the news pages.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[Molon Labe]

So using that silly analogy - intercity drug dealers, their friends and families should also have that same transition from selling heroin for $5,000 a day on a local ghetto street corner to government job programs as part of our domestic War on Drugs? Bullshit.

The Marine's may win...but if anyone thinks this will make one dent in the drug trade then you probably believe that McCain and Obama are different too.

The drug war is a joke....Some of us know that the governments simply decides which drugs they willl drug you with....that's all.

[AmPat]

So using that silly analogy - intercity drug dealers, their friends and families should also have that same transition from selling heroin for $5,000 a day on a local ghetto street corner to government job programs as part of our domestic War on Drugs? Bullshit.

How is that a "silly analogy?"

[wilbur]

The Marine's may win...but if anyone thinks this will make one dent in the drug trade then you probably believe that McCain and Obama are different too.

The drug war is a joke....Some of us know that the governments simply decides which drugs they willl drug you with....that's all.

Is this about shutting down parts of the Taliban or stopping the drug trade? I'd think marines have better things to do than be lowered to the level of the DEA.

[Odysseus]

As an owner of an FAA Repair Station I'm subjected to a drug and alcohol screening by the federal government every four weeks - so kindly go fuck yourself. You've been taken to school so just stop now and STFU.

Just because you don't come up hot doesn't mean that you're clean. Federal urinalysis only checks for THC, opiates and cocaine derivatives. They obviously need to expand the screening to include psychedelics, ergot and airplane glue fumes. :p

[LogansPapa]

Federal urinalysis only checks for THC, opiates and cocaine derivatives.

Under Part 145 - you're a little behind the curve there, Bosco.