thinken says:
wtf: where’s all the money coming from?
did the ol man have some poppy fields back home?
Well, in the beginning of action in Afganistan, the MSM described many Afgan “Warlords” who had armies to protect their territory and were killing US troops. I wondered how do these “Warlords” in such a poor country get funds to buy food, weapons, i.e. AKs, RPGs, mortars, machine guns, etc.? If you could cut off their funds, you reduce or eliminate their ability to eat or fight.
Then I remembered that much of the world’s opiates & heroin are from the poppy crops there - some to Pharmaceutical companies directly and some black market, perhaps indirectly (underground economy). I realized that these were not Warlords, but Drug Lords controlling their territory, crops and business / money. To eliminate resistance - destroy the crops, i.e. with paraquat. However, the US chose not to do that and the conflict has drawn out for many years...
They tried to destroy the poppy fields back in the day, but realized the heroin business was so lucrative for “warlords” & politicians that control of the poppy crop had US engaged with russia over control.
This struggle gave us the birth of our “allies” in the poppy war against the ruskies: hence the birth of the taliban.
Of course one of the taliban’s top leaders back in that period was none other than osama bin laden.
So, in effect, with US & our “allies”, the taliban defeating russia control of the trade went to bush
I’ve said for years that if we had the balls to carpet poppy fields with herbicides until a dandelion wouldn’t grow we would see a massive drop in terrorism. But after the ‘scandal’ of the very useful tool Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, the military can’t even dream of being allowed to do that.