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Bridgeburner
Not spiritual at all.




Registered: 09/16/06
Posts: 20,010
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NATO gives troops OK to attack opium trade
#9062356 - 10/11/08 09:05 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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NATO defense ministers agreed yesterday to allow troops operating in Afghanistan to attack drug lords and their networks supporting the escalating insurgency in the country.
The agreement was made under strong pressure from the United States, which has identified opium trafficking in Afghanistan – the source of more than 90 percent of the world's heroin – as a primary target in the stepped-up battle against the Taliban insurgency that U.S. commanders have begun mapping out in recent weeks.
But the accord also accommodates objections from some of the 26 NATO nations that contribute troops to the 50,000-person NATO force. Attacks on drug “facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency” will occur only if the NATO and Afghan troops involved have the authorization of their own governments, a provision that will allow dissenting nations to opt out of counternarcotics strikes.
The compromise appeared to satisfy the two U.S. officials who pushed the case for the new policy at a meeting in Budapest: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. John Craddock, the supreme NATO commander.
Afterward, Gates said the accord would allow “some to do things that others did not want to do,” and added, “It's better than nothing.”
On the drug policy, the United States once again ran into a problem that has beset the Afghan war effort: the widely differing levels of commitment by its NATO partners, some of whom have contributed troops to the effort but insisted that they remain in areas of Afghanistan where insurgent threats are low. Reluctance to widening the NATO mandate to include attacks on drug networks has come from Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, among other nations.
Their fear has been that attacks on drug lords, laboratories and supply networks will further alienate ordinary Afghans who have grown wary or hostile toward NATO troops, undercutting efforts to curb the insurgency and increasing threats the troops.
The drug trade is estimated to account for about half of Afghanistan's meager economy, and some of the nation's poorest people, including farmers who toil in the poppy fields, are dependent on incomes that flow directly or indirectly from narcotics.
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides


Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: NATO gives troops OK to attack opium trade [Re: Bridgeburner]
#9062385 - 10/11/08 09:17 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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This is only going to alienate the Afghanis further and make them fall into the hands of the Taliban.
Edited by Le_Canard (10/11/08 09:24 AM)
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Green_T


Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,042
Loc: UK
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Re: NATO gives troops OK to attack opium trade [Re: Le_Canard]
#9062400 - 10/11/08 09:22 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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*Deleted*
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"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson Legalize Meth | Drug War Victims
Edited by Green_T (08/02/11 03:49 PM)
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mastacheefa
Stranger


Registered: 09/02/04
Posts: 425
Loc: N. Georgia
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: NATO gives troops OK to attack opium trade [Re: Green_T]
#9062510 - 10/11/08 10:10 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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There going to attack, kill/arrest all these people in Afghanistan(who really have no other way of living and supporting there family besides opium farming) further ruining the U.S.'s reputation over there. And all that will come of it is the Opium of the world will be produced in another country besides Afghanistan, along with more hatred towards the U.S.
This will do nothing to stop 90% of the worlds production of heroin. Other people will see theres money to be made, jobs to be filled, and it will be produced in another country. Poppy grows basically anywhere.
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