Rumsfeld Says US Has No Ready Answer to Growing Problem of Opium in Afghan

[papau]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAQAGLYCJD.html

Rumsfeld Says US Has No Ready Answer to Growing Problem of Opium in Afghanistan By Robert Burns The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has no ready answer to calls for action to reverse the upward trend in opium production in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.
Rumsfeld was responding to a question from his audience at a "town hall" session with Pentagon civilian and military employees. The questioner said he had read that opium production is higher now than when American forces entered Afghanistan in October last year.
Rumsfeld confirmed the rise. "You ask what we're going to do and the answer is, I don't really know," the defense chief said.

He said Britain has "the greatest concern about it" and has taken the lead in attempting to reverse the trend because most of Afghanistan's opium is smuggled into Europe and Russia rather than the United States. "My impression is that in a very real sense it's a demand problem, it's a problem that there are a lot of people who want it, a lot of people with money who will pay for it, a lot of people who will steal from others to pay for it," he said. Suppressing production in one country only results in production rising in another, he added. <snip>

[papau]

1. Suppressing production.. results in production rising in another country

So what the hell are we doing in South America?

[Fovea]

2. So Don is saying

that as they jail more europeans, there will be less demand...
Okiedokie, Don.

[ewagner]

3. DUH!

Everybody knew that opium was a major souce of livelihood for Afghanistan farmers BEFORE we took down the Taliban. There was no attempt to deal with it then and they still haven't come up with a solution. Worse yet, the opium crop is used by the Regional Warlords to finance their private armies and hold a gun to the head of Karzi and his government. Incidentially, it was that way before the war also....nothing has significantly changed.

[stickdog]

10. Incidently, crops have increased 1000% since the Taliban was disposed.

So take your bs elsewhere.

[study_war_no_more]

17. Funny coincidentally the same happened in Panama after

Bush senoir took out Noriega the famed drug lord and inserted our crew. Powell for feudal lord.

[Tempest]

13. Bullshit, utter bullshit

The Taliban eliminated opium production in Afghanistan. They were killing farmers who were producing it against their dictates.


Taliban virtually wipes out Afghanistan's opium crop
www.davidicke.net/newsroom/asia/ afghanistan/091701a.html

Afghanistan’s cash crop wilts
www.msnbc.com/news/564809.asp

Afghanistan: Analysts Ponder Why Taliban Banned Poppy Cultivation
www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/06/14062001111150.asp


And thousands more:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=taliban+afghanistan+%22opium+production%22

[QuietStorm]

4. Bring it in!

Is what he meant to say. Who needs answers!

[Zero Gravitas]

5. Of course they have no answer

because Afghanistan is in anarchy, there is no effective central government, all that talk about tribal meetings and drafting constituations and having elections was just more lies.

The only thing that Bush* has not lied about is when he said that he'd not engage in nation building. Well they sure as shit aren't doing any nation building in Afghnaistan.

[donsu]

9. they are getting the route for the pipelines ready

paying off men to let the pipes go through their space and/or getting up armies in places it needs to be protected

[Minstrel Boy]

6. wake up and smell the poppies, America

US Intelligence has dirtied its hands in the drug trade for decades.

Has anyone read Peter Dale Scott's latest book, "Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina"?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0742525228/qid=1060879794/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-2577875-4628823

I haven't yet myself, but I just finished "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK", and I've become a great admirer of his work.


:tinfoilhat:

[study_war_no_more]

16. Google search for fun = Bush Cocaine

I love Peter Dale Scott

[Punkingal]

7. Well that's great.....

because his answers are always wrong, anyway!

[gratuitous]

8. Here's an answer, Donald

Bring back the Taliban and its draconian methods.

Free advice, and guaranteed to be worth every penny, you short-sighted, blood-thirsty, greedy bastard.

[QuietStorm]

11. You know if there really is an anti-christ...

...I'll just let that fade into the constant drone of white noise as a superfluous bit of babbling.

[goforit]

12. And you have to keep Poppy * in business.

Putzs!!!

[samsingh]

14. they never have answers

but still pretend to know what is going on.

[Proud_American]

15. How about this for a solution?

Legalize it (and all currently illegal drugs), grow it here, export it and tax and regulate the shit out of it. Isn't it high (no pun intended) time we stop making ordinary law abiding citizens into criminals for what we inject or inhale into our own bodies? Likewise, isn't it time we wake up and realize the "war against drugs" simply cannot be won?

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

18. Why not send the Taliban another $43 million

like you did in May of 2001, Donnie?

http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm

[Lori Price CLG]

19. Well, Bush can have the CIA buy more opium and fund more terrorists..

If Bush plays his cards right, he can use the opium from Afghanistan to fund his next act of terrorism on US soil, and ease his re-s-election efforts for Coup 2004 when his 'poll numbers' rise.
-Lori