Aid to Taliban

[Rigby5]

Thinker101 How much you want to bet it will be hundreds of millions in cash flown right in, just like Obama did in Iran.

Wrong.
That was Bush who flew in pallets of cash to Iraq.
Obama never gave any money to Iran.
He only returned their own money to them.

 

[Rigby5]

Let those Taliban A-hole pay their own aid out of the profits from the Opium trade. It was their largest export when we went there, and I suspect it is still their largest export. It is well known he who controls the opium controls the country and he who controls the country controls the opium. They don't need our money to defend their drug trade. It is how these people have been for ages and why they resist change from us, the Soviets and everybody else that made incursions there.

Wrong.

{...
Afghanistan's chief exports are Gold, natural gas and dried fruit. Other exports include carpets, fresh fruit, wool, and cotton. Afghanistan imports food, motor vehicles, petroleum products, and textiles.
...}

They also are sitting on the largest deposits or rare earth elements, and gems.
The Taliban was trying to eliminate the heroin trade entirely.

They also are where some major pipelines could be made.

 

[Rigby5]

yes a total surrender to the terrorists, paying them billions upon billions, for our losing the war against them

The Taliban are NOT terrorists and never were remotely associated with ANY terrorism, ever.

 

[Rigby5]

Sometimes I just have to agree with you, especially when you are correct. The Golden Crescent includes Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan

Golden Crescent - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Golden Crescent - History, Routes and its effect on India

The Golden Crescent is the name of Asia’s two illegal drug superhighways, located at the crossroads of Central, South and Western Asia. Download Golden Crescent PDF for free. For UPSC 2023, follow BYJU'S

byjus.com

**********​

Golden Crescent definition and meaning | sensagent editor

Golden Crescent: definitions, meanings, uses, synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, analogies in sensagent dictionaries (English)

dictionary.sensagent.com

Blame the British, they were the ones to start opium fields in Afghanistan, not the Taliban.

 

[White 6]

Sometimes I just have to agree with you, especially when you are correct. The Golden Crescent includes Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan

Golden Crescent - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

**********​

Golden Crescent - History, Routes and its effect on India

The Golden Crescent is the name of Asia’s two illegal drug superhighways, located at the crossroads of Central, South and Western Asia. Download Golden Crescent PDF for free. For UPSC 2023, follow BYJU'S

byjus.com

**********​

Golden Crescent definition and meaning | sensagent editor

Golden Crescent: definitions, meanings, uses, synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, analogies in sensagent dictionaries (English)

dictionary.sensagent.com

I know you hate to say it, cause you and I have bitched at each other before and probably will again, but I do appreciate you taking time to agree when we can.

 

[Rigby5]

Hmmm.. When I can go to New York City and see the twin towers rising above the city then I'll worry about rebuilding Afghanistan.

Blame the CIA, not the Taliban.

 

[Rigby5]

I know you hate to say it, cause you and I have bitched at each other before and probably will again, but I do appreciate you taking time to agree when we can.

Well you are both wrong.
The Taliban are not responsible for the heroin trade in any way.

 

[White 6]

Well you are both wrong.
The Taliban are not responsible for the heroin trade in any way.

They will be. Whoever is in charge of the country always is.

 

[Hossfly]

The Taliban are NOT terrorists and never were remotely associated with ANY terrorism, ever.

You are tripping over your tongue to defend those 6th Century murdering animals.

 

[Rigby5]

They will be. Whoever is in charge of the country always is.

Wrong.

{...

Homepage - War Is Boring

From drones to AKs, high technology to low politics.

warisboring.com

The Taliban reduced the world’s supply of heroin by two-thirds the last time they were in power​

David Pierson
Los Angeles Times

In a few months, farmers in Afghanistan will begin planting the fall poppy crop, eventually blanketing the dusty countryside in resplendent white, pink and red flowers.
It will mark the first time in 20 years that the illicit plant — the raw ingredient of opium and its derivative, heroin — will grow free of interference from U.S. and coalition forces.

The role of policing poppy now belongs to Afghanistan’s new rulers, the Taliban, which has spent years exploiting the crop to help fund its insurgency, cementing the country’s longtime position as the world’s leading producer of opium.

The militant group recently pledged to ban the production and sale of drugs, but weaning the country off the opium trade will be next to impossible given the nation’s dire economic situation and the lifeline poppy cultivation provides for Afghanistan’s vast rural population.

At its peak in 2017, annual opium production was valued at $1.4 billion, or 7.4% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, according to the United Nations. That tumbled to $400 million, or roughly 2% of GDP, in 2020 because of falling prices for the narcotic in the face of competition from synthetic opioids and methamphetamines.

But the crop remains one of the only reliable sources of income for farmers in a country ravaged by decades of war. The more unstable Afghanistan becomes, the more poppy is planted by those who have no safety net to hedge against the future.

“People who cultivate are often the poorest,” said Angela Me, a senior researcher at the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, who places Afghanistan’s share of the global opium market at over 80%.

The Taliban knows firsthand how difficult it is to sustain a ban. The first time the group ruled Afghanistan, it prohibited poppy cultivation in 2000, reducing acreage by 90% and cutting the world’s supply of heroin by two-thirds. But the edict also plunged farmers into debt, leading to an unemployment crisis that damaged support for the Taliban in the run-up to its ouster by U.S. forces and their allies in 2001.

Experts say that by again declaring that it will not tolerate drugs, the Taliban is trying to persuade the world it should no longer be regarded as a pariah state so it can gain access to vital international aid and funding at a time when Afghanistan’s economy is on the precipice of disaster.

The local currency, the afghani, could soon collapse, now that regular deliveries of U.S. dollars to Afghanistan’s central bank have been halted. The Taliban has also been cut off from billions in development assistance.

“Drugs are likely to be a bargaining chip with international players,” said Jonathan Goodhand, an expert on the global narcotics trade at SOAS University of London, who described the Taliban as being caught between foreign and domestic pressures.

“If the Taliban do try to introduce draconian measures to deal with drugs, they will undermine their support base and exacerbate the humanitarian and development crisis currently affecting much of the population,” he said.

The same calculus vexed U.S. and coalition forces tasked with reconstructing Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime nearly 20 years ago. Fighting drugs often had to take a backseat to the mission of dismantling al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. To fight a counterinsurgency, American troops and officials often sought support from tribal leaders enmeshed in the opium trade. Military commanders were reluctant to destroy poppy crops for fear of alienating farmers they were trying to win over.

When coalition forces did try to counter narcotics, their efforts were regularly thwarted by corruption, botched planning and poor execution, concluded a 2018 report by the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

A British operation in 2002 that involved paying farmers to destroy their poppy fields only encouraged new plantings after growers realized they could harvest the opium gum for profit and then destroy the remaining plants to receive compensation.

Fifteen years later, the U.S. launched costly airstrikes on suspected drug labs that failed to disrupt opium networks because the crudely built facilities could often be replaced within a day.

Also undermining interdiction efforts were Afghan government officials and authorities who accepted bribes or even engaged in smuggling. In 2005, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents found about 10 tons of opium stashed inside the offices of the governor of Helmand province, the center of Afghanistan’s poppy belt.
...}

 

[Rigby5]

You are tripping over your tongue to defend those 6th Century murdering animals.

The Taliban are modern idealistic students.
The word "Taliban" means "students".
They are likely the single most honorable government in the world, far more honorable than the US government.
It was NOT the Taliban who protected bin Laden, it was the CIA who forced the Saudi foreign legion on the Afghans, under duress.

 

[DukeU]

They are likely the single most honorable government in the world, far more honorable than the US government.

Door to door freedom fighters eh?

You dumb.

 

[RodISHI]

 

[RodISHI]

Those taliwhackers are such lovely "students". Just ask these ladies how well they were treated by them.

 

[DJT for Life]

Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan bizarrely claimed the U.S. is weighing delivering humanitarian and economic aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sullivan did admit that if the Taliban played nice and upheld their “international obligations,” then they could also receive economic aid.

This is what you ass-wipe commies voted for?

Biden National Security Adviser Says U.S. May Give Economic Aid To Taliban

It's called paying ransom for our citizens.

 

[elektra]

The Taliban are NOT terrorists and never were remotely associated with ANY terrorism, ever

Now that is pretty ignorant statement. Of course I do not believe that you think you that. Nobody could be that ignorant. Of course if you do believe it, then you are certainly a bit dimwitted.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

The Taliban are NOT terrorists and never were remotely associated with ANY terrorism, ever.

There was a story out a week or so ago how they burned a woman because they didn't like her cooking. Also stories about beheading who they believe to have helped us when we were there. Terrorism? How silly.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

The Taliban never hid Bin Laden, arrested him several times, and offered him to us when Bill Clinton was president.
The Taliban bore absolutely no responsibility for bin Laden at all, and it was the CIA that forced bin Laden on them, against their will.

We were talking about the country Afghanistan itself.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan bizarrely claimed the U.S. is weighing delivering humanitarian and economic aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sullivan did admit that if the Taliban played nice and upheld their “international obligations,” then they could also receive economic aid.

This is what you ass-wipe commies voted for?

Biden National Security Adviser Says U.S. May Give Economic Aid To Taliban

These are the kinds of stone age cretins who the Democrat Cultists want to give aid to.

 

[Calypso Jones]

Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return

One of the founders of the Taliban says the hard-line movement will once again carry out punishments like executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.

apnews.com

a return to business as usual...amputations and executions, beating women, raping children.