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the US and Britian have turned a blind eye to the opium trade and the associated corruption in Afghanistan in order to appease the local anti-Taliban population
by bl4k 16y ago
the US and Britian have turned a blind eye to the opium trade and the associated corruption in Afghanistan in order to appease the local anti-Taliban population.
I watched footage last week of British soldiers fighting to free large opium fields from Taliban control so that the real owners can get back to farming. All par for the course.
The war on drugs takes a back seat to the war on terrorism
- rottencupcakes 16y agoAs it should. Terrorists are an affront to freedom. Drugs are not.
- grandalf 16y agoTerrorism cannot be stopped (by definition). The affront to freedom is the response to terrorism.
- wan23 16y agoWhat part of the definition says that it can't be stopped?
- grandalf 16y agoDefinition: Terrorism is the creation of fear in a population intended to achieve a political end. What does it take to create fear? Certainly not successful terrorist attacks. Failed ones would work perfectly well too, as evidenced by the underwear bomber, shoe bomber, etc. Things as minor as prank phone calls, etc., will still strike fear into the hearts of the target population. So unless you can tell me that it's possible to stop failed attacks and prank phone calls, you must agree that terrorism cannot ever be stopped.
- ENOTTY 16y agoThat's just semantics. You can stop terrorists by killing them.
- prodigal_erik 16y agoOnly if the rate of killing actual terrorists is greater than the rate of motivating people to become terrorists, usually by killing their innocent loved ones.
- bl4k 16y agoI am not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy.
- commandar 16y agoIt's one of the interesting side notes of the war on terror in general. The Taliban had massively reduced Afghan opium production during their time in power[1]. Opium has always been such an important part of the Afghan economy, however, that production almost immediately picked back up after the US invasion in 2001. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Opium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Opium