Marines Bypass Taliban Opium Fields in Afghanistan

The Tal­iban, whose fight­ers are exchang­ing daily fire with the Marines in Garmser, derives up to $100 mil­lion a year from the poppy har­vest by tax­ing farm­ers and charg­ing safe pas­sage fees — money that will buy weapons for use against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.

Yet the Marines are not destroy­ing the plants. In fact, they are reas­sur­ing vil­lagers the pop­pies won’t be touched. Amer­i­can com­man­ders say the Marines would only alien­ate peo­ple and drive them to take up arms if they elim­i­nated the impov­er­ished Afghans’ only source of income.

Many Marines in the field are scratch­ing their heads over the sit­u­a­tion.

Read more...

Now you can understand why there is a massive explosion of cheap heroin available coming to you courtesy of the CIA