cannabisnews.com: Military Opposes Spraying Poppies 





Military Opposes Spraying Poppies 
Posted by FoM on March 25, 2002 at 09:09:25 PT
By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times
Source: Washington Times
The U.S. military is opposing Bush administration plans to conduct crop eradication in Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation in the coming weeks will net millions of dollars for Taliban and al Qaeda drug runners, U.S. officials say.   The military officials, including representatives of the U.S. Central Command, have argued in interagency meetings that attacking Afghanistan's poppy fields is a nonmilitary function that should be left to others.
 Proponents of the effort, in the White House and State Department, want the Pentagon to send special aircraft to drop herbicide on Afghanistan's poppy fields before the opium-producing plants are harvested in the next four to six weeks.   "This is asymmetrical warfare, and it would be a prudent force-protection measure," said a U.S. official close to the debate.   The money obtained from Afghanistan's poppy harvest will fuel the guerrilla war that is expected to escalate against U.S. and allied forces in the coming months.   The money from the poppies also will bolster anti-U.S. elements in the Pakistani ISI intelligence service, the officials said.   "If this opium is harvested and permitted to go to market, it will re-empower the negative elements in Pakistan's security service and lead to instability in Pakistan," the official said. "And it will fund a new round of international terrorism."   A National Security Council spokesman had no comment, noting that the subject is part of an ongoing internal debate.   Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has rejected the idea of using U.S. military forces for poppy crop eradication, according to a Pentagon official.   "That's not our mission," an official quoted Gen. Franks as saying.   Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson told Congress on March 12 that the DEA has obtained "multisource information" linking al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, to heroin trafficking.   "The very sanctuary previously enjoyed by bin Laden was based on the existence of the Taliban's drug state, whose economy was exceptionally dependent on opium," Mr. Hutchinson said.   Afghanistan produced over 70 percent of the world supply of illicit opium in 2000, and U.S. officials said the current crop is expected to be large.   A DEA intelligence report in September said that Afghanistan produced 74 metric tons of opium from 4,162 acres of poppy fields last year.   The opium produced was significantly less than in 2000, when 3,656 metric tons of opium were produced from 64,510 hectares of land that year.   Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who was ousted during U.S. military operations in December, issued a decree in July 2000 banning poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. He ordered the militia to eradicate any poppy fields under Taliban control.   The State Department, which is in charge of nonmilitary policies toward Afghanistan, has been unable to purchase the special aircraft required to spray herbicide on the poppies, the officials said.   One option under consideration is to purchase two Air Tractor aerial spraying aircraft and send them to Afghanistan. The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants.   But the State Department was slow to take steps to arrange the aircraft purchase, so the aircraft cannot be procured until August — well after the poppy fields have been harvested and the material turned into opium and heroin.   The DEA intelligence report said "numerous" laboratories are located in Afghanistan and Pakistan and there are "significant" numbers of opium dealers in the Jalalabad and Ghani Khel areas.   The laboratories are known to be located in Afghanistan's northwest border areas of Kunduz and Badakhstan provinces.   Military officials are said to have opposed the crop-spraying plan as being too risky in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters still pose a threat.   Most of the drug-producing crops are located in Afghanistan's Helmand, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Lowgar provinces.   Administration officials also are upset that the Central Command did not conduct bombing raids against opium warehouses in Afghanistan during the military campaign that began Oct. 7.   The facilities went unscathed after legal advisers at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., determined the opium storehouses were not legitimate military targets.   Interim government leader Hamid Karzai has continued the Taliban ban on poppy growing. Mr. Karzai also has sought international support for anti-drug efforts in the country.   Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported last week that Afghan farmers have begun cultivating poppy fields. Brig. Gen. Mehdi Abouei, chief of Iran's counter-drug efforts, said on March 18 that poppy cultivation is increasing since the U.S.-led bombing campaign and could result in a crop of up to 2,500 ton of opium this season.Source: Washington Times (DC)Author: Bill Gertz, The Washington TimesPublished: March 25, 2002Copyright: 2002 News World Communications, Inc.Website: http://www.washtimes.com/Contact: letters washingtontimes.comRelated Articles:Crackdown Moves Opium Market Underground http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12256.shtmlDEA Targets Afghanistan in Drug Warhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12233.shtmlU.S. Takes Aim At Afghan Opiumhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12097.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by kaptinemo on March 25, 2002 at 18:05:30 PT:
Have I missed something?
"One option under consideration is to purchase two Air Tractor aerial spraying aircraft and send them to Afghanistan. The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants."Gee, I used to think I was up on all the latest military technology; I may be forcibly 'retired' from the field, but I do like to keep an oar in the water.But what's this? 'Smart bullets', now? Shades of Ron Goulart's Hellhound Project and that old movie RUNAWAY. Yep, our weapons are so 'smart', they can tell if someone running away from you is a terr or not. Or whether a plant is a target or not.Uh huh. And to quote Scotty from Star Trek, "If my mother had wheels, she'd be a wagon'. In other words, 'B*lllllllllsh*******t.The only thing, the only thing they could possibly be talking about...is our old friend, Fusarium oxysporum...or a variation on the theme. After all, Afghanistan is prostrate, now. We can engage in any chemical 'testing' we want, right? Who's going to stop us? We've gotten away with it in Colombia, spraying peasent children with highly toxic levels of RoundUp mixed with Cosmo-Flux. Why not try the latest bit of genetic wizardry in a place where one more bit of devastation won't make a difference...or so some wonk is probably thinking.The antis are always railing on about how safe Fusarium is...because most of us don't speak French. So I've included a little something you might want to look at...which gives the lie to their statements:Résultat de la recherche pour 'oxysporum'
http://www.inra.fr/cgi-bin/admin/htdig/htsearch?restrict=&method=and&format=builtin_long&matchesperpages=25&sort=score&config=htsearch_webINRA&exclude=www.inra.fr%2FIntranet%7Cwww.inra.fr%2Fadmin%7Cwww.inra.fr%2Finfoservices%7Cwww.avignon.inra.fr%2FINRA%7Cwww.corse.inra.fr%2Fpresid%2F%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2Fintranet%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2FCBGP%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2Fzoologie%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2Fpatholcomp%2Finfodoc%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2Finfoservices%7Cwww.ensam.inra.fr%2Fw3-eleves%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2Fcomcentre%2Fintranet%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2Fcomcentre%2Fannuaire%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2Fintranet%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2FWEBTEXTO%2Fdoc%2FPERIO%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2FWEBTEXTO%2Fdoc%2FOUVENV%7Cwww.rennes.inra.fr%2FWEBTEXTO%2Fdoc%2FDOCENV%7Cwww.tours.inra.fr%2Finranet%7Cwww-egc.grignon.inra.fr%2FDOC%7Cwww-egc.grignon.inra.fr%2Fdivers%7Cwww-egc.grignon.inra.fr%2Fintranet%7Cwww.poitou-charentes.inra.fr%2Fdaj%2Fintranotes%7Ccompact.jouy.inra.fr%2Fcompact%2FCONSULTER%2FINTRA%2Finterne&words=oxysporumHave a look. A lot of the papers are in English...but just one look at what it does to food crops is enough to frighten the staunchest eco-drug-warrior.It ain't pretty, people. And if I am right, these sickos are about to condemn Afghanistan to even more starvation. All so that Unocal pipeline can be built unmolested. May God have mercy on the US...for history shall not.
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Comment #8 posted by BGreen on March 25, 2002 at 17:29:23 PT
Dark Star
"The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants."I felt the same way you did when I read this, Dark Star.This special defoliant they want to use is manufactured by the same company that makes the weapons our military are using that kill only al Qaeda and Taliban soldiers, while leaving the innocent Afghani people unharmed.
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Comment #7 posted by mayan on March 25, 2002 at 15:29:15 PT
Bomb Europe
Most of the heroin made from these poppies will end up in Europe...when do we start bombing Europe for supporting terrorism?
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Comment #6 posted by john wayne on March 25, 2002 at 13:13:35 PT
Moebius stip politics
The Northern Alliance are our friends. They grow poppies. So they are our enemies. Our friends are the Taliban, who kill poppy growers because we paid them.  Their enemies are the northern alliance, our enemies who grow poppies, remember. But the NA are our friends, because they fought the Taliban, our enemies. 
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Comment #5 posted by goneposthole on March 25, 2002 at 10:51:06 PT
Afghani poppy
I wrote about this before and said that the US military would never dare try and destroy these fields.They will get shot at from all directions. 
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Comment #4 posted by Jose Melendez on March 25, 2002 at 10:26:11 PT:
drug war is treason
From:http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020401/usnews/1war.htm...last weekend in New Hampshire, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut brought roars from a Democratic crowd when he said: "When we believe, as I do, that President Bush is providing principled leadership in the war on terrorism, we should stand with him. But when the president does some things we think are wrong, we've got to have the courage and love for our country to stand up and say, 'You are wrong!' " 
Al, Joe: Why didn't you talk like that during the election?
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Comment #3 posted by Sam Adams on March 25, 2002 at 10:00:43 PT
the military are no fools.....
they recognize a stupid idea based on political demagoguery when they see it. In 2 years of spraying in Columbia, the acres of coca cultivation increased 11 percent the first year, then 25 percent the second year. The spraying did manage to piss off most the population, and to sicken innocent adults and children, as well as killing food crops.
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Comment #2 posted by Dark Star on March 25, 2002 at 09:43:08 PT
Lies
"The plan called for using a special defoliant designed to kill poppy and coca plants without injuring other plants."I laughed for 5 minutes when I read this. As if there is such a thing! Such claims are pseudo-scientific organic fertilizer. Keep dreaming. Other crops will die, the people will get nothing, and the carnage will spread to another area.
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Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on March 25, 2002 at 09:42:56 PT:
Close, Mr. Hutchinson, but no cigar....
"The very sanctuary previously enjoyed by bin Laden was based on the existence of the Taliban's drug state, whose economy was exceptionally dependent on opium," Mr. Hutchinson said.I respectfully submit that the head of the DEA knows better: the Taliban economy was "exceptionally dependent" on the prohibition of opium.
From:
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/11/thread11627.shtml
Although the Taliban was effective in greatly reducing poppy planting, many officials believe the leadership maintained stockpiles of opium and used the ban to limit the supply and increase the drug's value. 
Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers said earlier this month that the Taliban did not ban opium farming "out of kindness, but because they wanted to regulate the market: They simply produced too much opium." 
Source: Washington Post December 24, 2001 I'll add that I am proud of those in the military who dared speak out against this crime against humanity. Propping up poison manufacturers wil millions of dollars in spray contracts should be prosecuted. Can you say, DyingCorp? 
Arrest Prohibition - Drug War is FRAUD
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