US weapons in Taliban possession

[bottomfeeder]

My question is why didn't we just blow up the outpost after the evacuation? Especially with weapon caches left behind. And, it's not like innocence would be endangered or anything.

[Saniflush]

Seen anything else on this? 

[bottomfeeder]

Seen anything else on this? 

Not yet, I have really been following it that much. But, at the end of the clip, the guy holding up the claymore looks American or Caucasian.

[bottomfeeder]

What I do know about Afghanistan is we have serious problems over there and if we don't do something it's going to go south for us all. The opium crops are funding the corrupt officials that we elected to government, without the poppy crop, there is no illegal money floating around. The efforts to destroy the crops caused problems with the farmers and rooting out the drug trade there was left to England and it has basically turn into a farce. I say if we can call in air strikes to burn the field, protected by the outside Taliban fighters, we can undercut the money that corruption is using to fund and undermines our efforts at representative government. "According to the UN opium production in Afghanistan rose from 149 tons in 2001 to over 8000 tons in 2008." Now if we are dead set on changing things there we will destroy the crops, all of them. If our defense contractors are to continue status quo and the illegal monetary gains from the crops then things will get no better there . It's a no-brainer night and day scenario.

[Pell City Tiger]

Too bad we aren't allowed to use napalm and agent orange any more. That would do the trick.

[bottomfeeder]

I know, but there has to be an alternative that isn't as harm to people or the environment. There are some birds that would suffer possible extinction if we totally eradicate the poppy plant. So, factors like the ecology must be consider. However, some eradication should take place and paying the farmers to plant something else was proved unsuccessful while other attempts were successful. This is what Obama purposes, but it will not work without security. Other than forcibly eradicating most of the plants, the illegal production of opium will continue, and this will continue everything that surrounds that activity. I'm looking for an alternative now.

Behind the scenes, however, Bush administration officials have been pressing the Afghan government to at least allow the trial spray of glyphosate, a commonly used weed-killer, current and former American officials said. Ground spraying would likely bring only a modest improvement over the manual destruction of poppy plants, but officials who support the strategy hope it would reassure Afghans about the safety of the herbicide and make eradication possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/asia/08spray.html

You should read this article in it's entirety.
Updated:

Effects of Previous Eradication-Centered Policy and of Interdiction Measures and Alternative Livelihoods Efforts Undertaken Until 2009  

During the 2008-09 cultivation season, the area of cultivation in Afghanistan fell by 22% to 123,000 hectares and opium production fell by 10 percent to 6,900 metric tons (mt). Much of this decline in cultivation was driven by market forces largely unrelated to policy: After several years of massive overproduction in Afghanistan that surpassed the estimated global market for opiates by almost three times, opium prices were bound to decline. Even at 6,900 mt, production still remains twice as high the world demand, leading to speculations that someone somewhere is stockpiling opiates.

More significantly, the persistence of high production betrays the ineffectiveness of simplistic policies, such as forced premature eradication, which since 2004 (until the new Obama strategy) was the core of the counter narcotics policy in Afghanistan. Policies that fail to address the complex and multiple structural drivers of cultivation and ignore the security and economic needs of the populations dependent on poppy cultivation generate vastly counterproductive effects with respect to not only counter narcotics efforts, but also counterinsurgency, stabilization, and state building.

The eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar provides a telling example. For decades, Nangarhar has been one of the dominant producers of opium poppy. But over the past two years, as a result of governor Gul Agha Shirzai’s suppression efforts – including bans on cultivation, forced eradication, imprisonment of violators, and claims that NATO would bomb the houses of those who cultivate poppy or keep opium, cultivation went down to almost zero. This has been hailed as a major success to be emulated throughout Afghanistan.

In fact, the ban greatly impoverished many, causing household incomes to fall 90% for many and driving many into debt. As legal economic activities failed to materialize, many coped by resorting to crime, such as kidnapping and robberies, others by seeking employment in the poppy fields of Helmand, yet others by migrating to Pakistan where they frequently end up recruited by the Taliban. The population became deeply alienated from the government, resorting to strikes and attacks on government forces, and districts that were especially severely economically hit, such as Khogiani, Achin, and Shinwar, have become no-go zones for the Afghan government and NGOs.

 Recommendations

    * Eradication can be a part of the mix of counternarcotics policies, but should only be adopted in areas that are free of violent conflict and where sufficient legal economic alternatives are available to the population.


http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2009/1021_counternarcotics_felbabbrown.aspx

[bottomfeeder]

Update: Bumper crops of opium.

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8328