From The Christian Science Monitor:
The opium trade helps fund the insurgency but also provides farmers livelihood.
Kandahar, Afghanistan - NATO leaders' agreement this fall to let their troops attack drug traffickers in Afghanistan held the promise of stemming the flow of funding for the violent insurgency here.
But military commanders now seem reluctant to go after the drug runners. NATO commanders in Afghanistan say they are holding back because of concerns over the legality of drug operations. But they may also be unwilling to conduct what is seen as a politically unpopular mission that could endanger their troops.
The country's multimillion-dollar opium industry is blamed for funding much of the bloody insurgency against US and allied troops.
Read more ....
My Comment: Locating and destroying the poppy fields is going to be the easy part of the operation. It is having the will to do it which is lacking.
Drugs are evil. The fact that it is being used to fund the Taliban makes it doubly so. If farmers are foolish enough to grow opium instead of food staples .... they must accept the consequences.
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