Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The Other Hellhole

Ever wonder why American news has forgotten about Afghanistan?

I never hear about it when I'm in the states, but it's in the Canadian news regularly. It was constantly in the news when I was in France. Of course, Canadian and French troops are still fighting alongside our troops in Afghanistan and dying like everyone else. But, you knew that right? The angry guy who told you that "those damn Frenchies are utterly opposed to the US and constantly support our enemies" also slipped in "Well, except for all of the support they've given in Afghanistan and Lebanon..." right?

Apparently, the situation in Afghanistan is terrible. Key cities overrun by Taliban forces, various places turned into 'hellholes', girls getting forced out of schools, etc. etc. The good prognosis is that we'll be there for another decade. The bad is that it's already been lost. So, why isn't anyone talking about it in the states?

3 comments:

SecondComingOfBast said...

And don't forget the opium/heroin factor, production of poppy is higher than it ever has been, and accounts for roughly ninety perent of the worlds supply. That's where the Taliban are getting their funding.

The fact that we can't control that shows you how bad it's gotten. It should be a simple matter to buy them out, but of course there are bureaucratic red tape reasons I guess we haven't gotten around to trying that.

Rufus said...

So we tell the farmers to stay poor or get killed by the taliban to uphold our hopeless 'war on drugs'. It's totally nuts.

SecondComingOfBast said...

The weird thing about it is, think of all the things pharmaceutical compnaies could make with that stuff-codeine cough syrup, oxycontin, and who knows what all else. We could buy the stuff in bulk and the farmers could probably make more money than what they are making now. The pay off to the American taxpayer would make it worth the initial investment.