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Obama's Strategy Shift in Afghanistan

Started by OttoVonBismarck, March 27, 2009, 11:00:14 AM

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Richard Hakluyt

Why not legalise heroin? Open some factories to process the stuff in Kabul, thus providing Afghanistan with money and employment and giving our junkies a more stable and safe supply.


Syt

Quote from: Warspite on March 27, 2009, 12:44:26 PM
"Hi, we're foreign and have a problem with street heroin. So we're going to offer you the opportunity to plant wheat and drastically reduce your income. Failing that, we'll burn down your crops, and then again give you the opportunity to drastically reduce your income."

Indeed. Unless they have an alternative that either pays better or is significantly less work intensive they have no incentive to change their ways.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

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Josquius

Couldn't you just keep an eye on them then when harvest time comes nab the buyer?
Farmer gets money, person involved in the drug trade and possibly taliban gets arrested, people are put off buying poppies from farmers in the area.
Win-win-win.
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Berkut

Quote from: Syt on March 27, 2009, 12:50:39 PM
Quote from: Warspite on March 27, 2009, 12:44:26 PM
"Hi, we're foreign and have a problem with street heroin. So we're going to offer you the opportunity to plant wheat and drastically reduce your income. Failing that, we'll burn down your crops, and then again give you the opportunity to drastically reduce your income."
Indeed. Unless they have an alternative that either pays better or is significantly less work intensive they have no incentive to change their ways.

But that is the point of burning down the fields - it gives them an incentive to change their ways.

After all, you don't see giant poppy fields in the US, despite the obvious profitability of it. Because there is an incentive not to do so.

I am not arguing that we should burn anyone's fields - but only because I don't know that it would work.
Indeed. Unless they have an alternative that either pays better or is significantly less work intensive they have no incentive to change their ways.
"If you think this has a happy ending, then you haven't been paying attention."

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Warspite

Quote from: Berkut on March 27, 2009, 12:52:47 PM
Quote from: Syt on March 27, 2009, 12:50:39 PM
Quote from: Warspite on March 27, 2009, 12:44:26 PM
"Hi, we're foreign and have a problem with street heroin. So we're going to offer you the opportunity to plant wheat and drastically reduce your income. Failing that, we'll burn down your crops, and then again give you the opportunity to drastically reduce your income."
Indeed. Unless they have an alternative that either pays better or is significantly less work intensive they have no incentive to change their ways.

But that is the point of burning down the fields - it gives them an incentive to change their ways.

After all, you don't see giant poppy fields in the US, despite the obvious profitability of it. Because there is an incentive not to do so.

I am not arguing that we should burn anyone's fields - but only because I don't know that it would work.
Indeed. Unless they have an alternative that either pays better or is significantly less work intensive they have no incentive to change their ways.

It certainly does give them an incentive: you are right there. But it is difficult to make it a long-term incentive unless you intend to have a presence monitoring vast areas of rugged geography. And regardless, you will not win the support of the local population by forcing them to grow wheat. As you say the real problem is a lack of viable economic opportunies.

The reason you don't see massive poppy cultivation in the US is down to rule of law. The US is an advanced democracy with well functioning enforcement apparatus. The virtual absence of this is the reason we are in Afghanistan.
" SIR – I must commend you on some of your recent obituaries. I was delighted to read of the deaths of Foday Sankoh (August 9th), and Uday and Qusay Hussein (July 26th). Do you take requests? "

OVO JE SRBIJA
BUDALO, OVO JE POSTA

Sheilbh

Quote from: Valmy on March 27, 2009, 12:20:45 PM
What would be the alternative to burning the fields?  Buy up all the harvest?
Legalise Afghan opium for the EU and US pharmaceutical market.  Then we get cheaper prescribed opiates and we can buy their poppies.

I generally think this is good but I saw a really concerning map today.    I can't find it online but this is close to it, it showed Taliban attacks, the darker the red the heavier - and grey is 'light':

The version I saw was bigger and I think there were only 2 grey provinces and about 4-5 pink ones.  So, actually I don't think that focussing on the South would be ideal.  I think have missions like the current French one (they basically have the province from the Khyber pass to Kabul) that try and protect main arteries but I think getting the areas where the Taliban shouldn't succeed due to ethnic and religious differences clear and then moving onto the South would be better.

And I think Iran could, again, be very useful to have helping in Afghanistan.
Let's bomb Russia!

saskganesh

while its a crop quite suitable for dryland farming, wheat probably won't cut it. with a recovering global supply, and volatile prices: $8.55/bu (60 lbs=bu) for number one durum last week down from $16-18 we saw last year at peak, but still up from $5/bu "normal," its hard to see how Afghan farmers can compete in the global market. 

farmgate price for poppy is estimated to $70/kg or  be $2000 for 60 lbs.

dont know about poppy field yields. I think you get 25-30 lbs of poppy an acre. In NA, wheat can yeild about 6k-8k lbs an acre. can afghani's yield half?  this means they can be sometimes comparable in terms of price, especially if food prices go up again,  but I think poppy may be easier to bring to market. buyers also pay cash.

afghanistan ag also urgently needs restored irrigation projects and extensive deforestation to heal the land from 30 years of war.
humans were created in their own image

saskganesh

#22
I think they should plant trees and grow organic macademia, almonds, walnuts, and pistachios  for the global confectionary market. like they used to.
humans were created in their own image

ulmont

Quote from: saskganesh on March 27, 2009, 02:14:42 PM
while its a crop quite suitable for dryland farming, wheat probably won't cut it.

"I'd like to start this talk on drought management with a joke.

Dryland farming."

saskganesh

humans were created in their own image

Siege

Why are people here afraid of burning the poppy fields?

Burning is good. It would ridicalize the situation.
- The people that are growing poppy are already talibani supporters.
- The hit on the taliban income will be sizeable.
- It would clearly separate the people that are working to rebuilt Afghanistan from the ones perpetuating the conflict.
- It would be an step towards restoring the rule of law.



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Syt

Quote from: Berkut on March 27, 2009, 12:52:47 PM
But that is the point of burning down the fields - it gives them an incentive to change their ways.

After all, you don't see giant poppy fields in the US, despite the obvious profitability of it. Because there is an incentive not to do so.

I think the main reason you don't see poppy fields in the U.S. is because the United States are a functioning society with respect for law and order and an executive/judiciary(word?) branch that makes it very likely you'll get caught and pay the price.

This is not the case in Afghanistan, arguably; and I think burning fields would be counterproductive in that it further alienates the populace and reduces their willingness to cooperate. First you'll need stability in the country and rule of law, and the means to uphold them - then you can have lasting success in the fight against drugs. At the moment you'd just step out one flame while another or two spring back up elsewhere.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Oexmelin

IIRC there was a plan for turning Afghan poppy cultivation to legal morphine production («Poppy for medecine» or something approaching) for export but that it was fought by the major pharmaceuticals.
Que le grand cric me croque !

Martinus

Quote from: Valmy on March 27, 2009, 12:20:45 PM
What would be the alternative to burning the fields?  Buy up all the harvest?
Legalize it.

Berkut

Legalizing drugs might be a good idea - but not as a response to terrorists being the supplier.
"If you think this has a happy ending, then you haven't been paying attention."

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