I remember a remark I read a couple of decades ago about malaria being a disease epidemic to disrupted tropical ecosystems. William McNeill? I can't recall offhand.
It seems to me that opium cultivation is, likewise, an occupation epidemic in disrupted socioeconomic systems.
Which means that we can expect more of this, and we can also expect that it will not readily yield to any sort of control. Or, most likely, any control whatsoever that the locals do not impose themselves.
If and when we leave, I expect that the opium production facilities will simply change hands.
Whether of not the new owners decide to formally bury the previous al-Qaida tenants or simply plow their bodies under to fertilize the soil will be something that only time will tell. But I'm pretty sure they won't be asked to leave politely. Like us, they've made far too many enemies for that.
That's interesting Hub, but, givin the USA policies of the past, how are we to know them poppy fields aren't part of our 'unstated' foreign policy, like it's been in the past?
And how do we know USA ain't supporting the growth of the poppy? We always have in the past.
Ya know?
"Herr-ooo-innn--'ll be the death of me"
opium cultivation is, likewise, an occupation epidemic in disrupted socioeconomic systems.
Interesting point Stormcrow
How long before our troops in the field start riding the horse? Shades of godsdamned Vietnam.
How long before our troops in the field start riding the horse? Shades of godsdamned Vietnam.-The Wanderer
From what I've heard from the handful of OIF returnees we've had enter our PTSD programs Wanderer - they're already working on it...
Of course, if you wanted more evidence that "AQ in Iraq" has little or nothing to do with the Taliban-sheltered Bin Laden organisation, other than the name, this is it.
One of the few sort-of-positive things the Taliban was remembered for was effectively ending widespread Afghan poppy farming due to the religious hardline policies they enacted/
if you wanted more evidence that "AQ in Iraq" has little or nothing to do with the Taliban-sheltered Bin Laden organisation, other than the name, this is it.
One of the few sort-of-positive things the Taliban was remembered for was effectively ending widespread Afghan poppy farming due to the religious hardline policies they enacted
What's policy for the Taliban isn't necessarily policy for the outfits they shelter.
Any more than Iranian policy binds the outfits they support, like Hizbullah.
War and politics have always made for strange bedfellows. Even more so today, when 4GW methods start out by discarding the idea of centralized control.
I suspect that you are right about the ties between AQ in Iraq and AQ in Pakistan. They're probably very thin at their strongest.
But the AQI poppy fields don't imply this.
I don't know, I'd say AQ to Hezbollah is an apples and oranges comparison. The former is a loosely-associated Sunni terror group and the latter is a much more wide-ranging Shia organisation that, while it includes paramilitaries (and suicide bombers for as long as they had no effective weaponry), also funds and operates effective social programmes for the disadvantaged, usually Muslim, citizens of Lebanon.
I agree wholeheartedly that war and politics makes for strange bedfellows (FDR, Stalin and Churchill on the same side - who'da thunk it?), but I'd say that the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden's outfit pretty much march in ideological lockstep. Prior to the 2001 WTC attack, the Taliban were reluctant to hand him over despite being made an offer few despotic regimes could refuse.
Here is the comment I wrote when I responded to this news item at cryptogon.com:
Opium isn’t necessarily a bad drug (the fact that it has a side-effect of constipation is a good built-in deterrent to getting addicted to it, for a lot of people, at least), but it certainly does become a problem when the vast majority of world opium crops get made into ultra-addictive heroin. Many heroin addicts will tell you about the monkey on their backs, “Heroin is so good that the best way to not get addicted is to not even try it once.”
I also understand why Iraqi farmers are doing this. Drug crops have always been more lucrative than food crops, and that will be the case as long as international drug-prohibition is in effect. And rest assured that the elites want prohibition not to protect us from our naughty consciousness-altering urges, but because they need the stimulation to the international finance economy provided by flooding the system with the huge amount of money from illicit drug-profits that result from the prohibition system.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq ... "Al-Qaeda's" turned into a franchise name, something you use to conjure up instant street cred. I'm very surprised we haven't seen some gangbangers in this country calling themselves "Al-Qaeda in Evanston."
There's another thing about opium - if you're going to lie back and listen to the Celestial Dragon singing, you need trustworthy people to take care of you. Bad things might happen.
Note: I do not speak from experience.
And another interesting thing about heroin addiction: Many addicts who have successfully physically shaken the addiction-monkey off their backs go back to being on the junk because of the intense, overpowering psychological hold the drug has over them. That's scary.
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