U.S. Confirms U-Turn in Afghan Counter-Narcotics Policy
June 28th, 2009My previous guess was that the USUK drug cartel was going to try to drive prices back up and then unload the tons of stuff that have been stockpiling. According to the information below, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Perhaps the new goal is to get as many acres as possible going with opium production and take an economies of scale approach. Recall the British covert operation that was centered around training Taliban fighters in irrigation and farming techniques *cough* *cough* *wink* *wink*.
Maybe that program is coming out of the shadows.
Via: Financial Times:
The US counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan is to undergo a U-turn with money previously spent on controversial opium poppy eradication shifting to agricultural development, Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told an international conference on Saturday.
Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister who chaired the conference in the port city of Trieste, quoted Mr Holbrooke as saying the US would spend “several hundred million dollars” in promoting production of legal crops and cut back funding for eradication.
Research Credit: dano5050
