Narco-State Tells U.S. to Take a Hike

Parent Cafe
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<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_on_re_as/afghan_drugs[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_on_re_as/afghan_drugs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I get to deal professionally with the consequences.</p>

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<p>Mini, the agribusiness interests have a rather legitimate point. Latin America has something of the same problem - impossible to chemically eradicate the cocoa plant without also harming legitimate agriculture, and people.</p>

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<p>A few weeks ago the Economit had an article about regulating the growth of the poppy plants and turning them into pain and anesthesia meds.</p>

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<p>latetoschool -</p>

<p>You’ve obviously never been to Afghanistan (I have). There are no other crops to speak of (all right, a couple of small eggplants here and there, a pumpkin or two and a chili pepper). Legitimate agriculture? Surely you jest.</p>

<p>The reality is that if the so-called Prime Minister of Afghanistan (actually, the mayor of one corner of northeast Kabul) went out to eradicate an opium field, he’d be dead before he pulled out the first plant.</p>

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<p>Mini, it’s probably unwise to make assumptions about where people have been, and, for that matter, where they might happen to be right now. :)</p>

<p>Having said that, have you been to Afgh recently??? Are you aware of the aggressive ag reconstruction work? </p>

<p>BTW, Latin America has the exact same issues, but, some areas are managing to make some small bit of progress without wrecking the environment and destroying legitimate agribusiness (although no where near as rapidly as DEA and other interests would like).</p>

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<p>" Are you aware of the aggressive ag reconstruction work?"</p>

<p>I have a close friend (in my Friends Meeting) who served as a midwife, relatively recently (actually retraining midwives with a grant from the Agha Khan Foundation.) When asked about reconstruction, she simply says, “I saw a lot of soldiers.”</p>

<p>They’ve spent $18 billion rebuilding Iraq, too. But, in the case of Afghanistan, it isn’t “reconstructing” agriculture. It wasn’t there to begin with.</p>