I honestly don't understand why this was down-voted. The planting of opium formed a major part of the Afghan economy - roughly 50%[1] of their GDP in fact - and

I honestly don't understand why this was down-voted. The planting of opium formed a major part of the Afghan economy - roughly 50%[1] of their GDP in fact - and outlawing parts of that economy is both expensive - the US spent $7.6 billion trying to stop it[2] - and likely to alienate the people who you rely on for intelligence. That doesn't mean that the intelligence will stop coming, it's worse than that. It means it won't be reliable. The trouble, when you get into this sort of application of force, is that you end up being nothing more than an enforcer for the local grievances. They'll tell you where something is when they want you to squash it - and in the mean time, because it is illegal, people profit off it who you don't want walking around with a lot of money. No-one trusts you, because your behaviour pattern appears unreliable unless you know who's talking to who, you don't manage to stamp the things out, and you inflict a lot of grievances. The smart move is not to try to exact control on an issue when it is not practically attainable. The U.S. hasn't been able to control drugs within its own borders, where they all speak the same language and there aren't the same degree of major tribal issues, let alone in Afghanistan. And it seems to me to have had the same sorts of disastrous outcomes there as it has in the U.S. ---- 1. http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy-briefing/how-drug-war-afghanistan-undermines-americas-war-terror http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy-briefing/how... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pagewanted=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pa... 2.http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/asia/afghanistan-drug-war/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/asia/afghanistan-dru...