Destruction of poppy fields in Afghanistan

[matt66]

The Nato forces have been burning poppy fields in Afghanistan for the past 5 years justifying their actions by saying that these fields supply heroin to Western countries and cause untold harm. However these poppy fields are the bread and butter of the farmers. Now think about the weapons factories and research institutes developing weapons for modern warfare. They cause untold harm to people all around the world. They also provide jobs and livelihood to thousands of people. So why is it OK to burn the poppy fields and not OK to destroy the weapons factories of USA/UK/Russia/China. Please explain.

[parkesquay]

Ah matt66 you are deliberately"mixing your metaphors" so to speak. The subject of poppy production in places like Pakistan is in no way related to such things as arms production. Yes it is true that for the 'simple grass roots'(pun intended) farmers poppy production is their bread and butter. However because of the untold world-wide misery and corruption caused by heroin one would think that the simplest way would be to find alternative subsidised crops. This of course has been tried but we in Britain have no concept of the power that the 'Warlords' in these areas have. Without heroin many of the gun totting gangs of this world simply would have no reason to exist.

[mash]

its OK to burn pooppy fields because they screw up hundreds of thousands of lives, do we really need a better reason?