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Ear to the Ground

A New Type of Surge

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Posted on Jul 20, 2009
POPPY
msnbc.com

Poppy cultivation plummeted with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but has since skyrocketed.

U.S. government officials are conducting a new kind of “surge.” The DEA has started dispatching agents to Afghanistan to target opium trafficking networks that are believed to be funding the Taliban insurgency, a change from the Bush-era policy of poppy crop destruction.

Los Angeles Times:

The U.S. government is deploying dozens of Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Afghanistan in a new kind of “surge,” targeting trafficking networks that officials say are increasingly fueling the Taliban insurgency and corrupting the Afghan government.

The move to dramatically expand a second front is seen as the latest acknowledgment in Washington that security in Afghanistan cannot be won with military force alone.

For much of its eight-year tenure, the Bush administration’s counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan were focused on destroying the vast fields of poppy that have long been the source of the world’s heroin. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Afghanistan’s contribution to the global heroin trade has risen to 93%, according to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.

But the Obama administration believes that the effort drove many farmers and influential tribesmen into supporting the Islamist insurgency. The Afghan government and some NATO allies in the country agree.

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By Alejandro, July 20, 2009 at 1:26 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Will our Government never learn? Once again, smoke and mirrors to asuage the Beast. Please! The reason the so-called 93% of the heroin trade is in Afganistan is because of economics 101, (Supply and Demand).

Curtail the Demand side of the equation and the supply will cease to be profitable, very simple.

Hear is what I think. The production of illicit drugs is very profitable to the various corporations that use this business as a means to generate income for the weapons industry as well as Homeland Security, DEA and the other Law Enforcement Agencys that deal specificly with illicit drug interdiction.

Billions upon Billions of taxpayer dollars are extorted from Americans every year by this massive fraud that has been perpetrated by every administration since Nixon started the program.

Go back to sleep America…

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