Opium Trade Continues

>>138580317
The real question is how do they stop grunts from packing a kilo or two as a bonus

>>138580317
Soldiers don't "protect" the fields at all. This is like elementary tier conspiracy bullshit. The US military went through a campaign years ago attempting to take them off of farming poppy, by providing alternative crops to grow, but poppy was still being grown en masse. Now the policy is just rather passive on the poppy issue. I've never met ANY solider who guarded poppy fields or helped harvest, pack, or process opium in Afghanistan

>>138581269
This

"Muh opium" is the same level 1 pseudo-redpill as "we invaded Iraq for oil" that they teach starbucks drinking liberals

>>138580317
the pipelines of opioids into every american life (illegal via mexico, legal via disability payments) are so large now it's pretty clear it's a method of political control

>>138581269
It's easy for conspiracies to get started when Newspapers like the New York Times and NBC News at one point showed that the Taliban had banned Poppy and the crop had died there. But after the invasion the crop became everywhere.
Weird how that happened.
And how we see a long history of things like the Opium Wars, Air America, the Contra's, Operation Fast and Furious.
Hmmm, it's almost like there is a pattern.

>the Americans protect the the poppy fields from the Taliban as it's the only product the Afgan farmers can make a profit from..sad but true.

>>138581913
Taliban only "banned" poppy in name. In truth they were just shutting down the market for ordinary farmers to grow it in order to make a living, and growing it themselves while artificially inflating the prices by storing it long term. It's called market manipulation. Pretty smart for a bunch of goatfuckers. They made millions.

>>138581269
BULLLLL-FUCKING-SHIITTTTTTT

WITH THAT MUCH MILITARY HARDWARE
READY AND ABLE THOSE FIELDS CAN BE
SCORCHED IN A DAY. IT IS A 'PREFERENCE'. AFGAN OCCUPATION IS
THE OPIUM WARS OF OUR TIME IN ALL
BUT NAME.

>>138582287
In other words the farmers weren't growing it, and it was only after the invasion that they did.
Exactly.

>>138582409
Poppy is responsible for maybe 56% of Afghanistan's GDP. It's the most important cash crop over there. Taliban did not go on some moral crusade to stop the drug flow, because they too realized its immense value. They just made sure they were the ones growing it, and after the invasion they ramped up production ten fold because they lost control of the market as they were losing ground fast.

How do you think the Taliban afforded to fund the insurgency in the first place? Donations?

CIA niggers need their heroin fix

>>138582564
Honestly, I don't care why they stopped it. That's a distraction from the reality. That it started back up.

File: 1501128377994.jpg (18KB, 509x339px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 509x339px

>>138582325
As someone who served in the Army, you fuckers don't have a clue what you're talking about. We've NEVER had the manpower on the ground to even properly hold/service Afghanistan, never the less destroying OR guarding massive amounts of poppy. I don't think you guys understand how fucking vast that region is. Then you have the Pashtun regions on the border between Astan/Pakistan where the US isn't even active.
>>138581913
Taliban look at putting opium on the American market as a subversive war they have a one up on us over, like poisoning our Homeland

>>138582836
It does poison our homeland.
Are you telling me that they have the manpower to do that? To get it over here?
How is it all getting here? You're telling me they are doing that on there own?

File: Drugroutemap.gif (21KB, 450x241px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 450x241px

>>138583003
I doubt Afghan opium gets into the US as much as Colombian, Mexican and Burmese opium. Afghan opium primarily goes to Europe and Russia.

>>138583208
europoor here, can confirm afghan merchandise around here since forever

>>138582836
I have a clue what I am talking about.
I feel you are sentimental about your service.
Lemme be a bit more specific.

>Longest foreign occupation in USA history
>Involving almost all other nations which are members of NATO.
>All the gadgets and hardware at your disposal that makes your military the greatest in the world.

>And you cannot burn those fiels.

Give me a break soldieranon, with consistent air strikes you can scorch all those fields in a relatively short amount of time. Certainly shorter than 15 FUCKING YEARS.

Those fields won't fire stingers at you this time around.
If opium is what it is. This pattern of conduct is nothing but contradicting.
Be objective this time around.
Best regards. SoldierAnon.

>>138583003
I don't have a clue how the logistics of the international drug smuggling rings for opium work. I would imagine they use gangs out of China or other nearby territory with a large black market. Whatever they do to ship it, none of our drug enforcement can stop it. Alot of our opium shit comes from Mexico now too if I'm not mistaken

Side note: Do synthetic opioids even need actual opium to be created? I was under the impression that it's all synthetic, drugs like Oxy or Fentanyl

>>138580317
You just /threaded your own thread bro.

This is literally so Big Pharmacy can have a huge chunk of that money for no good reason. Another reason why there's no public option for healthcare.

>>138581338
What else did they invade Iraq for

>>138583425
Listen you think skulled Mongrel the US tryed a policy during the war to stop them from harvesting opium and it didn't work, they still harvested it. The US has never had enough time and manpower, risking lives to search and destroy poppy fields. Not to mention the logistics headaches of also running other missions and maintaining the area of operations in other regards. Afghanistan is VAST as hell, and a 120k person contingency force, with only 30k of that force actively outside the wire, isn't near enough to eradicate poppy. And you can't call in airstrikes on poppy fields either that is a waste of resources and retarded. Even if you could airstrike them all, great, now you need to supplement the Afghanis cash crop or they'll hate you even more, bogging your unit down even worse

>>138584110
This is exactly what I was about to type. Another soldier anon here. Pirate flag anon is confirmed 13. "You guis got bombs and stuff tho rite?"

File: AFGAN_JUNK.jpg (54KB, 899x501px) Image search: [Google]

54KB, 899x501px

>>138584110
Look at the image. It is a bird nest made out of junk needles, somewhere in the great western civilization.

Open google maps and find those fields yourself. They cannot be hidden. They need fucking sun. They are in the open. Poppy doesn't like the shade.

As if you can grow opium in caves and shit.

Opium wars are not new. The only difference is
they were actually called the 'Opium Wars' back then.

As if Iran-Contra never happened. Drugs market is an absurdly profitable black market that has been exploited consistently.

>IT HAPPENED BEFORE BUT IT IS NOT THAT THIS TIME.

Sure anon.

>>138584041
Israeli interests

>>138581269
Yes thats why heroin is cheaper than anythign on the west coast ever since you occupied afghanistan.
Give me a fkin break..

>>138585280
The west coast of what, the US?
All the shit they get there is black tar. That's from Mexico and it's the shittiest quality, but also the cheapest.

>>138585147
>Implying you can't grow plants in dark areas.
Hydroponics/UV lamps say otherwise.

>>138585280
Mostly because of our proximity to Mexico and as they began losing large amounts of revenue from our marijuana legalization, they have supplemented the losses by importing more and more heroin, at cheaper prices.

I mean ground level do you guys seriously think the DEA of CIA is just wondering around Afghanistan secretly importing poppy? That's ludicrous as fuck, it would take some level of military support to undertake an operation of that scale, and there have been no accounts from soldiers on helping in that capacity.

>>138580317
Literally the only crop they grow is poppy. Thats fucking it. No corn, no FOOD, just fucking poppy. It was like that before we ever arrived, and it will continue to be like that for a long time after we leave.

>>138580317

God damn I would like to smoke some opium one day

>>138585803
LMFAO TOP KEK.!!!!!!!!
>AFGANIS GROWING HYDROPONIC OPIUM IN CAVES AND SHIT. SUPPOSED GOAT FUCKERS HAVE LABS IN CAVES RITE?

Afghanistan is currently the #1 producer of
opium.
It has been for more than a decade.
Breaking record after record of production.
Keep kidding yourself.

>>138581269
We more or less just ignore it, it's not even that the policy is passive, it just doesn't exist at all. You take away the farmers livelihood and then you'll likely see the ranks of the various insurgent groups get a lot deeper as result. Afghanis are backwards stoneage people, investing so heavily in them is pointless as fuck. Best case scenario that we root out all the current extremist factions and they don't blow up their schools etc probably still ends with a violent Anti-American Islamic government not too many years after we withdrawal either way. We fucked up by declaring our war there as anything other than wiping out the Afghan regime and killing Bin Laden's group. The country was already in the stoneage, a few blown up buildings wasn't going to hurt anything in the long run. Fuck that war. t. Army vet