GHW (Poppy) Bush’s CIA operation is a success!

Mission Accomplished!

it leaves open the question of how many failed states this era of foreign policy extremism will leave littered behind it in its wake.
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I think we’ll be able to count America as one of them in the near future.

Ha! My first thought, too!

But, of course we’re known as the “Blame America First” crowd.

s/

And lets send thirty thousand more young american over, to see if we can make it one million thirty thousand

It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that one. But it’s a double-edged sword– we can say that to the Pukes whenever they criticize the policies of Obama administration. “Oh, you must be one of the ‘Blame America First’ crowd. How come you people always side with the terrorists?”

It is infuriating and unbelievably stupid that the US failed in it’s post 9/11 opportunity to rid Afghanistan of Al Qaida. Instead, it has allowed the culturally taboo growth, sale, and use of drugs to flourish.

Exactly how dumb and ineffective is our government to let this happen?

so that’s the shrub strategy: maybe they think a stoned country means a jihad-free country something equally ridiculous… which is consistent with our policy in Somalia, by the way, where we opted for total chaos as oppose to Islamically-oriented rule when we supported the ill-conceived Ethiopian invasion a couple of years ago. Oh well, rumor is that the Chinese and a bunch of countries nobody’s even heard of are sending a fleet or two to try to clean up that mess… ’cause it really benefits the US to cede influence over the Gulf of Aden to China. Then there’s Mexico, where we figured rule by drug lords is better than rule by liberals. Brilliant, shrub. They’ll be singing your praises in schools of diplomacy for generations to come.

Oh, by the way, the Turkish company that made al Zeida’s shoes have seen over 300,000 orders come in for the particular model used to berate shrub, from all over the world. They’re the hottest selling item since Cabbage Patch dolls.

Iran is full of new heroin addicts as well. Feature, not a bug.

OT :)

She apparently is also an expert of the Depression, which will come in handy…;)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/58289.html

I heard that about Iran. But this video makes me want to cry.
I am trying to put this in a political context, and all I can think of is the opium wars in China.

OT, breaking *news*:

Caroline Kennedy Asks to be Time’s Person of the Year
Satire by Andy Borowitz —

Caroline Kennedy would like to be considered Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2009 and has let the magazine’s editor know of her interest in the honor, aides to Ms. Kennedy confirmed this week.

Thanks Stirling.

digg

This is a direct effect of the American invasion

i know that there are widely varying views on whether our invasion of afghanistan was morally justifiable and/or a smart way to respond to the 911 attacks….. but at some point i’d really like to have a discussion on that. what have learned? when should we support usa attacks on others?

Somewhere I read a very long time ago that poppy growing was verboten under the Taliban. But when our armies came in, they needed the help of the warlords, so they made a pact to turn their heads when the warlords grew their poppy and earned lots of money to raise their armies, etc., in exchange for their help with throwing the Taliban out.

Moral to the story, we didn’t just turn a blind eye. We encouraged poppy growing for extremely cynical purposes. Now the question is how to control the monster we created.

Once some semblance of peace and relative stability can be achieved, a continuous and massive supply of buprenorphine to the country would help.

I could be wrong, but I thought the Russians had trouble with opium. re: many russian troops got addicted during that war in Afghanistan.
I am sort of agnostic about poppy growing, because many countries did it for centuries–Turkey for one–or I should say it’s as old as Rome and Greece, and probably older. IMHO when there is a cataclysm, like British/Chinese, Russian/Afghanistan, Afghanistan/USA, it seems everyone becomes addicted. I remember watching a HK kungfu movie that was supposed to be set at the turn of the century. It featured an opium addicted ghost, and my friend laughed, the joke being: even ghosts in China were addicted to opium in that period.

I really fear for the guy with that huge abcess who was asking for more than 8 needles. Medically, speaking.

Did the Taliban forbid it or just have it under tighter control? I thought opium was still coming out of Afghanistan during their tenure.

Haven’t researched it lately, but what I read said it was banned under their tenure.

I think there has always been high grade opium grown in Afghanistan — for several thousand years, anyway. That’s why armies keep coming from all over the world to invade … The Persians, The Greeks, the Mongols, the British, the Russians. Now the US … you really can’t be a major world empire without taking a run at Afghanistan.

Here’s a map showing historically important trade routes emanating outward from Afghanistan:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w…..Routes.jpg

It’s nobody’s fault that there are opium addicts in Afghanistan and Iran, or Manhatten for that matter … it’s just always been like that.

Those aren’t ulcers, those are freedom blisters.

Let freedom reign.

-G.W. Revisionist

LOL!

It’s not the fault of the addict, and poppies have obviously been grown there and elswhere for centuries. Drugs are universal, after all.

But drug use is not looked upon kindly in Islam, so I argue that cultural pressures in Afghanistan would naturally discourage the production and trade of opium. Had the US actually developed a rational policy there, it would have put resources into development projects that freed Afghans to find work other than in the drug trade. Shouldn’t have been too difficult considering the fundamentalist bent of the region.

The ancient Scythian empire of Central Asia buried their rulers in tomb graves in which have been found censers (incense burners) that contain the residue of opium. Opium use has been a part of that region, and areas that had trade with that region, for millenia. When it reached extreme levels in impacted societies there were efforts to eradicate it. But it was also traded profitably by Empires (including the British Empire)…who ran one of the largest drug cartels in history, backed by the British Army and Navy.

The Taliban never did ban opium poppy production. They did warehouse the production for a couple of years, and tried to reduce addiction within Afghanistan. This was basically something worked out in the latter part of the last millenium. But there was evidence that they were still exporting heroin.

Taliban and Al Qaida are thugs. Real adherents of Islam do not approve of drug use. IIRC, the Taliban (and Al Qaida?) got away with growing and selling drugs because the market served infidels.

Like I said, I am really agnostic about poppy growing, and even usage to a certain point. I think, as other commenters say,it has been grown for thousands of years. (It still has medical usages and I heard BigPharma obtains it legally in order to produce derivatives).But I will venture to say that I think drug use does not reach epic proportions unless something is really wrong (re: Opium Wars). I don’t like it when it hits neighborhoods or countries like a plague.It’s a sad, sad thing. I’ve seen it happen.And it really seems it is a plague. I do not blame the users so much. I am just trying to understand the dynamics that cause massive amounts of people to fall into addiction at certain points in history.
I have heard that the infrastructure in Afghanistan is so bad that farmers can’t get other types of produce to the market. I have to concur with yellowsnapdragon that bad US policy may be part of the problem.

I will be doing a longer follow up on this topic, since there has been enough interest.

Good. Because it touches on so many issues, here in the US and abroad as well as history.

Follow the money, Stirling.