From Denny: Well, it took long enough! Finally, we are starting to bomb the daylights out of the drug crops in Afghanistan. These farmers have repeatedly been offered free seeds and other resources to raise other crops that will bring income. As usual for weak human beings, they go for the easy and fast cash offered by the new drug dealers in town: the Taliban.
Here's an excerpt from a CNN article. It's also linked on my link companion page: Dennys Global Politics Fav Links under the North America section.
"KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday in a dramatic show of force designed to break up the Taliban's connection to heroin.
The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday.
The air strike occurred mid-day in Helmand province.
The military dropped a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then followed with strikes from helicopters.
Tony Wayne, with the U.S. State Department, said the strikes on poppy seeds, that can be used to make opium and heroin, is part of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs.
In a bid to encourage Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops the U.S. Agency for International Development has been offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation.
Many of Afghanistan's northern and eastern provinces have already benefited from USAID alternative farming programs, which have doled out more than $22 million to nearly 210,000 Afghans to build or repair 435 miles (700 kilometers) of roads and some 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers) of irrigation and drainage canals.
Giving Afghan farmers improved access to markets and improved irrigation is successfully weaning them away from poppy production, according to officials at USAID.
Over the years, opium and heroin -- both derivatives of the poppy -- have served as a major source of revenue for the insurgency, most notably the Taliban movement that once ruled Afghanistan.
"If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way, the fighting will go away," said Abdul Qadir, a farmer in Lashkar Gah. "The Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear."
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Photo by Department of Defense
Afghanistan, Taliban, United States, heroin, poppy seeds, war, farmers, bombings, Kabul, USAID, farm aid
