Poppy fields, opium, heroin.?

Yes, it is our only option.

A major percentage of their national economy comes from illegal drugs. If we were to take that away the government wouldn’t have the funds to operate and would fall to the warlords and terrorists. Which is ironic because the country doesn’t have a transportation infrastructure and relies on the terrorists and warlords as middlemen to bring their products (drugs) to market. Soooo all we’ve done is legitimize a practice that brings loads of cash to those who would see us dead.

What we should have done is stayed in Afghanistan (and never gone into Iraq) and helped them build their infrastructure so that they had a chance of having a viable economy without having to resort to making/selling drugs.

It isn't that easy, and we aren't spraying things in Colombia, the Colombian government is. Locating the fields isn't the issue. The issue is which fields supply legitimate growers, and which don't. Opium refined into heroin is illegal, however opium refined into morphine is a legal and legitimate drug that is needed. The UN is supposed to monitor and ensure that only legal opium production occurs, however, the UN's effectiveness in this area is just as suspect as in other areas of enforcement. And if that isn't enough opium production is in many areas the only means to earn a living in Afghanistan. How much support could be expected toward the new Afghan government, NATO, or the US forces, if they simply torched or sprayed defoliant on the only means of support for the locals. The issue is way more complicated than most people can imagine.

I think you have misread the article. The government that will allow the poppys to be grown and the profits from them to be reinvested in the government is the Afganistan government--not the US government. In every instance that the US spokesman was sited as saying something was done so that the story could reach beyond Afganistan. Therefore, is not saying the US government condones the practice as you seem to be.

Please re-read the article.

They are allowing because of economical situation.Its related to let people substitute to other crops by time. Otherwise if they completely stop, that means it will costs the US more than ever before. Its logical for the short-term but not for the long term.

Yep if they r going to grow it and bring it on over u should be able to have it without a jail sentence! What about a guy who goes to jail for 50 years for selling marijuana and the guy next to him killed someone and he got 15 years! wow thats just messed up!

hummm...the US takes no risks in growing, harvesting, processing, or selling...and gets a kick back? Sound like Bushbag is funding the war on terror by screwing the war on drugs and taking funding from the forth coming war on... uhh...everything else has been declared war on....humm I guess the war on WAR.

I can't see the resoning behind this either. For medicinal use, we can grow our own to use in make narcotics like morphine.

It should not be legal for consumption in the USA, that would just be plain stupid.

hey this is Bush government... u can not expect to find any normal logic behind these kinda stuff.. he's got his own weird logic which will not be understood by any rational mankind!!! :o)