Our failure in Afghanistan reaches another milestone
What do you get when you combine two bad ideas? You get Operation Iron Tempest.
After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban’s $200 million-a-year opium trade, the U.S. military quietly ended a yearlong campaign that targeted drug labs and networks laced around the Afghan countryside.
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Since then, U.S. and Afghan warplanes have launched more than 200 strikes aimed at disabling Taliban narcotics production, processing, trading and transportation networks. Yet the drug trade thrived. So, over time, the U.S. halted the number of air raids. Only two strikes took place over the last three months of 2018, which marked the end of the campaign, according to the latest Defense Department Inspector General’s report.The military’s strategy became the latest high-priced failure to slow endemic poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan. The U.S. has spent $8.9 billion in U.S. counter-narcotics efforts since 2001, yet the war-torn country has consistently produced about 85% of the world’s illicit opium supply.
In total, the air campaign barely dented the drug enterprise.
That's what happens when you combine the War on Drugs with the War on Terror.
Failure.
The United Nations documented over 1,000 square miles of net opium cultivation last year.
That's not to say that it had no effect. It had a huge effect.
A record number of civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year according to a UN report, which blames an increase in suicide bombings by Islamic State and airstrikes by US-led coalition forces.In its annual report published on Sunday, the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said 3,804 civilians were killed in 2018, the highest toll since it began compiling figures in 2009. Another 7,189 were wounded.
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The government and its US and Nato allies were blamed for 24%, a significant increase on 2017, with many the result of increased airstrikes.“For the first time since 2009 when it began systematically documenting civilian casualty figures, UNAMA recorded more than 1,000 civilian casualties from aerial operations,” the report said.
The US military says it carried out 6,823 airstrikes in 2018, the highest figure in six years.
Now imagine if all those dead civilians were Americans.
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Comments
Who needs poppys
when the world is flooded with oxy and fentanyl?
Oh that's right. When people cant afford them they turn to heroin.
Pharmaceuticals are the gateway drugs.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Yep, but we need a wall because DRUGS! /nt
small point of order
A small point of order: oxy (and all the other codones, including codeine) come from the poppy. Fentanyl and tramadol are fully synthetic, though.
Still absolutely true.......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Very true
But it doesn't come from Afghanistan and most of them are a combination of natural and synthetic opioids.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
On the subject of opposing regime change wars.
Tulsi just had a very good interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0q3mqsBeDA
Jordan even asked her about her torture comment (she's against torture). Please send her $1. Maybe she can shame Bernie into a more enlightened position on war and regime change.
chuck utzman
TULSI 2020
I like Tulsi more and more every time I hear her speak
At this point I'd much rather have her than Bernie because just as she noted, we will never be able to afford "nice stuff" as long as we are funding continuous regime change wars. So Bernie, ultimately, can never succeed in any of his goals. That argument doesn't even mention the ethical issues with our current policies.
So just to keep score, that means in 2016 I voted for a woman (Jill Stein). Right now I'm planning on voting for Tulsi in 2020. Not bad for an old white Bernie Bro misogynist, eh?
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard