re: Afganistan again

[mata hati]

and NO - I am not suggesting they burn the people, just the crops!!

[sp1814]

Eh?

What's the story?

[sp1814]

Ignore my post. I've just paged down.

[johnlambert]

The Americans also lost a lot of soldiers when they tried this in Vienam, they burned the crops and the wind changed directionm, the yanks breathed in the opium filled smoke, became "high" and got slaughtered by the Viet Cong.
The problem with burning the crops is that you cannot protect the local populace from the fumes short of uprooting them from their homes and you can imagine the field day the press would have with that.

[MrBen5]

Hmmm, apparently i heard that a breeding of locust is taking place which will be trained to attack these crops. Details have not yet been released to the public yet.
As johnlambert says, burning these crops is a no go...

[amonty1144]

Why burn it, there is an international shortage of morphine, why not buy it, harvest it and put it to some use by making morphine .
let some good come ouf of this damn war.

[anotheoldgit]

The reason we will not destroy the crop of poppies is because of the British softly softly approach.

We say that if we stop the growing of poppies the farmers will suffer and then turn to the Taliban to get rid of the British. Excuse me but isn't this what they are already trying to do.

A number of suggestions have been made, ie buy the crops off the farmers for use by the NHS. Another is to try and get the farmers to grow other crops to sell on the world market. Yeh! I can see this happening would they get the same price for any other crops, as they get for growing drugs?

I thought one of the reasons we went into Afghanistan was to stop one of the worlds most prolific drug produces, but then we were told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

I say send in the jets and napalm the lot, think of all the misery it would save in the world. Stop drugs at the source.

[mata hati]

Breeding locusts? wouldn't they eat everything else?
What about some sort of weedkiller? No, that could poison folk. No solution then!

[MrBen5]

Exactly mata hati. The trial locust ended up attacking people as they must have smelt of opium.
There was one case in a predominantly muslim area, where one lady's clothes were eaten and she was apparently stoned to death for showing her legs in public...

[Reverandfunk]

Who cares?

Just pull out and let them carry on with killing each other by whatever means.

[mata hati]

Reverandfunk -
If you dont care then you should and spare a thought for the innocents.
Though I would have thought if the Islamists dont want foriegners in their country, why dont they deal with the extremists themselves, surely they would overwhelm them in number?

[Reverandfunk]

Mata Hati - Taking your point further then, why aren't we invading every country that has an oppressive regime/nuclear capability?

half of Africa is in turmoil have we gone in there? Errr no

Columbia/Boliva with its drug trade have we gone in there? Errr no

The list is endless.

We are only in Iraq because the Bush family made all it's money from oil and we are only in Afghanistan looking for Bin Laden.

I find it shocking that our soldiers are being killed with weapons that the US supplied to SAfganistan to fight the Soviets.

Pull out and let them kill themselves, they aren;t happy unless they are murdering their own.

[mata hati]

Reverenfunk,

I was merey asking why they couldnt burn the crop - not enter into a heated political debate!
and no, I dont think that anyone should invade anywhere.

It seems to me that the main culprit is the US, How can they dictate to other countries who should or should not have a military protection (nuclear and otherwise) ? They themselves are up to their armpits in every impliment for use in war, so every other country is going to feel threatened by them. Of course the others want what they have, but maybe it's only to protect themselves!
In regard to the drugs - I dont know what other comment to make - perhaps the American government will buy it all to re-sell for Bush's Iraqi war fund!

[Reverandfunk]

Sorry Mata ;-)

I agree with you, good old US of A protector of everybody.

Is that the same USA that had slavery back in 1960's and the KKK? Think they should get their own house in order before they go messing in other peoples back gardens. But most Americans haven't left the country, a quarter probably couldn't point to Afghanistan on a map so that's what you're up against.

I need a lie down lol