SulaymanF,

I can’t believe the U.S. government actually said “the Taliban’s successful opium ban is bad for Afghans and the world”.

Riyria,

I can. It harms the U.S. government’s war against the poor. How is the prison industrial complex going to continue to thrive if the largest exporter of opium poppy in the world doesn’t export opium producing poppy anymore?

GunnarRunnar,

Bitching about people switching to more dangerous substances makes the case to legalize it, nothing more.

pjhenry1216,

The US government didn't really say anything. A government funded non-profit that is supervised by an independent US agency said it. It has the same freedom of press as NPR would theoretically. Authorities in the EU is worried as well. Basically, without heroin, they think everyone will use fentanyl instead which is far worse. This is what occurred the last time there was a heroin shortage. So, ultimately, this will backfire greatly. And moreover, the ban was announced two years ago. When announced, it was believed it would actually be completed at a time that would have caused immense hardship on Afghans that were growing it, hence the claims the Taliban was turning a blind eye. Because they effectively were.

This is an extremely biased article against the US for some reason. There's a difference when drug production was essentially being done out in the open and then suddenly stopped. Satellites can easily find where the poppy fields were. You can't do this with marijuana, nor do I think you should. And on top of that, the drug problem the US has is importation or small scale manufacture. Its an entirely different problem. And again, the war on drugs was never meant to do what this article seems to imply.

I'm surprised at this article and it's conclusions. They're extremely deceptive, biased, and not entirely accurate.

SulaymanF,

It’s still monumentally selfish for US agencies to make life and death Afghan struggles all about themselves. It’s like when Senator Jesse Helms complained when Indonesia cracked down on underage smoking because it harmed the US tobacco industry.

Afghan opium farmers switched to wheat crops, which the country needs due to famine, and the article points out the Taliban graciously waited until after harvest before cracking down and enforcing the ban for the next season. I wouldn’t have.

sharedburdens,
perdido,

Could it be? A successful war on drugs?

Jimmycrackcrack,

Talican doing what Americant lol

unscholarly_source,

I mean… Sure there are major improvements that can be had in the US, but punishment and consequences as defined in Sharia law isn’t exactly something that the US can simply adopt.

Trudge,
@Trudge@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Three million dead due to the Afghanistan war alone wasn’t brutal enough for you?

The systematic, institutional rape and torture of men, women, and children in Abu Ghraib was more brutal than anything defined in Sharia law but we still pretend that the occupation was clean.

Smoogy,

Both can be wrong, Sounds like you’re just here to derail into having a different conversation you want to have entirely separate to the topic rather than addressing the actual topic.

Trudge,
@Trudge@lemmygrad.ml avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • julianh,

    I mean my takeaway would be that the us shouldn’t slaughter and torture people, not that they should have slaughtered and tortored more people to curb opium production.

    whiskeypickle,
    @whiskeypickle@lemmy.ml avatar

    because you are sane

    bluGill,
    @bluGill@kbin.social avatar

    The Americans didn't intend to kill all those people. They intended to kill soldiers, and lots of other people who they deemed evil, but growing drugs was never deemed evil enough to be worth killing someone over. The Taliban intended to kill those growing drugs, along with a lot of other people doing things they deem to be evil I'll leave moral judgements to you.

    Montagge,
    @Montagge@kbin.social avatar

    LOL
    No one I served with gave two shits who they were killing or why

    thefartographer,

    Unscholy_source is referring to domestically. US can’t adopt wholesale murder of drug-users because it doesn’t benefit the dealer to kill their clientele. Plus, it’s super-cool to kill and torture people from the middle-east because we don’t like the way they pray to their invisible friend.

    Aesthesiaphilia,

    But what about!!!

    pjhenry1216,

    Are you suggesting since the US did that, they should institute unconstitutional laws in the US as well? Your argument is seriously that they did some bad things so let's do worse?

    adroidBalloon,
    @adroidBalloon@lemmy.ml avatar

    the US didn’t go to Afghanistan to combat the opium trade. thanks for the false equivalence, though.

    4xdegrees,

    So all those DEA guys, FDA folks teaching wheat farming, millions of pounds of drugs burned, raids we conducted to “combat opium traffickers”, and all the reports we were fed about how we are responsible for eradicating Afghan opium all means what, exactly? What were we (and Myself, personally) doing there, again?

    adroidBalloon,
    @adroidBalloon@lemmy.ml avatar

    So all those DEA guys, FDA folks teaching wheat farming,

    hilarious. you should do stand-up.

    so, you’re claiming, without evidence I might add, that people from the DEA and hehehe… the FDA were teaching wheat farming to the Afghani people? The DEA and FDA. And you expect anyone to take you seriously? lmao

    and all the reports we were fed about how we are responsible for eradicating Afghan opium

    what reports? let’s see these alleged “reports”

    What were we (and Myself, personally) doing there, again?

    I have no idea what you were doing there, and if you think this is what was happening, I seriously doubt you were ever there at all.

    nonsense_boyo,

    Man you libs really just sometimes shit all over the floor and declare you won the “argument”. Its cringe as fuck.

    FDA being clearly wrong aside, its clear your reading comprehension skills fail in the face of your debate bro antics of wanting to dunk on OP and avoid addressing any of the facts said.

    politico.com/…/obama-afghanistan-drug-war-taliban…

    adroidBalloon,
    @adroidBalloon@lemmy.ml avatar

    aww, look at you, with your tantrums and your insults because you have no facts to back up your claims.

    and look! you even have a link that contains exactly nothing that backs up your claims. funny how you insult my reading comprehension, but if yours wasn’t so terrible, you’d see that for yourself. it’s cute how angry you are.

    sleep well.

    SLfgb,

    May I suggest you read the article before commenting

    Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, cutting down Afghanistan’s poppy fields.

    unscholarly_source,

    And may I suggest you do some research before replying?

    www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65787391

    Balancing an AK-47 assault rifle slung around his left shoulder and a large stick in his right hand, Abdul hits the heads of poppies as hard as he can. The stalks fly in the air, as does the sap from the poppy bulb, releasing the distinctive, pungent smell of opium in its most raw form.

    In April 2022, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada decreed that cultivation of the poppy - from which opium, the key ingredient for the drug heroin can be extracted - was strictly prohibited. Anyone violating the ban would have their field destroyed and be penalised according to Sharia law.

    The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people 🤦

    And punishment under Sharia law is much more severe than getting beat by a stick, which isn’t something that obviously will never fly in the US.

    SLfgb,

    The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people

    That was my point exactly.

    But invoking the spectre of “Sharia law” is just as vague as referring to “US law”.

    BrrooklynMan,
    @BrrooklynMan@lemmy.world avatar

    But invoking the spectre of “Sharia law” is just as vague as referring to “US law”.

    right, because Sharia Law and US Law are exactly the same thing…

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b4e44eb8-73fa-4e9a-843a-f67d1d591ab7.jpeg

    pjhenry1216,

    Something the US couldn't do under the previous government. Plus many switched to wheat beforehand anyway due to food shortages. The US didn't rule Afghanistan and had to work within Afghanistan's government. That government is gone. The Taliban can act like a dictator. Sure, armed with little more than sticks, but farmers had a two year lag beforehand to switch to wheat. This ban wasn't just announced it's old. It was just never enforced til now. I mean, it's ridiculous to compare the two situations. If the US did the same, at the time they were there, there would have been total economic collapse plus basically commiting war crimes.

    SLfgb,

    iirc there was barely any opium production in Afghanistan pre-2001 under Taliban rule. It was in the following 20 years that the industry boomed and a lot of those government officials you refer to and their relatives got extremely rich from that, including President Karzai’s own little brother. The US put those people in power and propped them up for over 2 decades. It’s pretty clear the US decision-makers tried to eradicate poppy just as little as they tried to create peace in the region (not at all).

    freagle,

    LOL. Raises questions for whom? Libs? Everyone knows what the fucking USA was doing all along. Except the libs.

    NB: both USA Rs and Ds are both liberal in their political philosophy and are both subject to this critique.

    AngrilyEatingMuffins,

    A decade ago sure, but Rs are just fascists now

    freagle,

    Fascism has only ever emerged from liberalism

    AngrilyEatingMuffins,

    Sure but it’s illiberal by definition

    freagle,

    But the Republicans have not yet become fascists. So they are still in the liberal phase.

    Neato,
    @Neato@kbin.social avatar

    Except the libs.

    Says all you really need to know about this user.

    Echo71Niner,
    @Echo71Niner@kbin.social avatar

    Selling it, what else.

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