Taliban
 

Now:

Taliban mulls flooding the West with heroin to shore up Afghan economy

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I wonder how it will get here.:popcorn:

Afghan women, girls fear return to ‘dark days’ as Taliban enter Kabul.

As the Islamist insurgents enter the capital, many fear a disintegration of women’s rights, with the Taliban overturning the freedoms gained during the 20 years since US-led forces helped oversee the country’s transition to democracy.

"The Taliban will regress freedom at all levels and that is what we are fighting against," an Afghan government spokesperson told Reuters on August 13.

"Women and children are suffering the most and our forces are trying to save democracy. The world should understand and help us."

Roya Sharifi

Taliban kill woman for not wearing veil, say reports. Days of lashing, stoning back in Afghanistan? - YouTube


Not sure how we can walk / run away.

BBC report, and recent Taliban press conf.

Afghanistan crisis: Taliban give first press conference in Kabul - BBC News

We never had a chance to replace their govt along term. Strange that feminists are not jumping up and down over what is going to happen to females over there.

My father was a British soldier in the 1920's, and was stationed in India and Afganistan.
The only thing he ever told me was that the Afgans only stopped fighting each other, to have a pop at the local British garrison.
He also said it was the most beautiful country he ever saw.
The saying about the people was, "You can buy an Afgan, but you will never own one!"
Not much has changed, and given our history in the place, I was truly surprised our government ever put troops back into the country.
But who looks at, or takes notice of history books any more?

Very true.

Twenty years and two trillion dollars for an inevitable outcome. We didn't learn from the French regarding Vietnam or the Russians regarding Afghanistan.

This will be the only warning. Any further political posts in this thread will get it closed and more infractions will be issued.

Moderator

Please point out a political post....not seeing one.:MOJE_whot:

They were deleted.

Moderator

Glad they were deleted.
This allows a thread to continue and not allow an individual to kill a thread.

10,000 Americans still stuck there.

Or soon to be a couple? Maybe?

I was in Afghanistan 16 months ago. Since 2010 I have spent 2 1/2 years there I never found it to be beautiful or even remotely charming.

When we entered in 2001 our mission was to prevent Afghanistan from being a launching point for terrorists. Had we kept that in mind there would be no loss of focus or as much of a financial waste.

This may sound brutal but it is not worth the loss of one American life to ensure girls can go to school when their own families don't want that.

There is no history or desire for democracy there, there is no overwhelming commitment for national security or even a national sense of pride of any significant depth. We were chumps for believing it was even possible to extoll American beliefs there.

Afghanistan GNP is ONE TENTH of it's spending. There is no way the country can survive without international welfare.

Might that international welfare come from Russia or China at this point? I’m curious as to what will trend there now.

Easy to transport over the southern border along with the meth.

The initial post is correct. Taliban mulls are flooding the West with heroin to shore up Afghan economy. Drugs will continue to hit our street no matter where they come from. We have spent endless amount and years trying to stop it with no avail. This like most things is a supply and demand issue. We have to discover a way to replace the demand. Either a drug, some sort of surgical implants or really go futuristic a VR headset, something to break the dependence on these types of drugs. Because after all this time and money we have to admit whatever we are doing is not working.

WELL said...
:pray::bigbow:

Agreed up to a point, but it was like a cancer patient going into remission for 20 years and the the cancer came back and they died. Was it worth it? Of course it was.

So true!!!!!

Thank you moderator
 

For doing your job. The Crux itself is not political but some people always insist on making it so

Women and children Taliban

Women children...
 

We've been there long enough, too many of our boys have died, too much money, have we spent. We don't need to be there. They are savages. Look at the history of all the nations that have tried to take over this country. Beyond 3rd world.

Don't fool yourself it will be flown or by sea into ports of entry as it always has and is.

Afghanistan is not a 'country' in the way we think of one. It is actually a bunch of fiefdoms controlled by warlords and their armed followers. Of which, most of the money and weapons we have sent there have went into the pockets of those warlords. Our original intent to go there and stop Al-Qaeda and/or other international terrorist groups from having a safe haven under the Taliban, was a good one, but the failure was in thinking we could change centuries of their warring history. We need to stop trying to nation-build and recognize that at some point, enough is enough. Yes, it is a tragedy regarding what will happen to women and children under Taliban rule, but unless we continue to lose American troops for another 20 years and a few more trillion dollars (which still won't change anything and the money will still pour into the warlords pockets) - it is time to leave. Our biggest mistake was in not starting earlier in getting those who have helped us out of the country first, for their own protection. Our other mistake was not having good enough intelligence to realize how fast and easily the Taliban would fill the void, without the threat of Americans backing the joke of the previous 'government.'

History (British/Russians/Etc.) shows that a country's citizens are willing to fight to the end, against those who have 'invaded' their country. If the USA were invaded - we would be doing the same exact thing.

What happened to free speech? This is what China does……

The history and culture of these people goes back to the silk road and the tribal days. The Han dynasty created the northern route specifically because they needed to provide safety for the caravans moving across this region. The northern route was built to avoid dropping into what is now Afghanistan.

This is not open mike night. TOTV is a privately run website with rules which include no political posts. But there are those that just can't help themselves and insert political posts into almost every thread, resulting in many of them getting closed by the moderators who are just doing their job.

Anyone who wants "free speech", are free to start their own web forum

2 trillion dollars could have built so many hospitals and drug treatment centers…..what a shame

You're confused. That only applies to what our government can do to its citizens, NOT to how a private entity (such as this site) or a company - can do to its members/employees.

You mean like what Latin America has been doing for 30 years?? Americans stop being drug addicts and the problem goes away!

More like 20 years of hospice than remission. Hardly worth it.

I tot

I totally agree.

Let us thank God our troops are coming home.

The following paragraph is from the Wikipedia article “Opium Production in Afghanistan”:

“Afghanistan has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001.[1] Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply.[2][3] More land is used for opium in Afghanistan than is used for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.[4] By 2019 Afghanistan still produced about 84% of the world market.[5] This amounts to an export value of about US$4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers.[6] In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.[7] As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the Afghan National Security Forces.[8] The opium trade spiked in 2006 after the Taliban lost control of local warlords. In addition to opium, Afghanistan is also the world's leading producer of hashish.”

Production in 2020 was up 37% over 2019, but the biggest year was 2017. https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop...2020_SMALL.pdf

If people aren’t living in war zones, then we can expect opium production to increase, but we can also expect the price the farmers receive per kilo to decrease. According to the web site OECworld (observatory of Economic Complexity), “ The top exports of Afghanistan are Gold ($968M), Grapes ($214M), Insect Resins ($129M), Other Nuts ($113M), and Tropical Fruits ($97.4M), exporting mostly to United Arab Emirates ($1B), Pakistan ($544M), India ($485M), United States ($35.6M), and China ($29.1M).” Opium brings in far more money every year than all of their other exports combined, so of course they will grow as much as possible because they will have a desperate need for money. Bear in mind that a huge percentage of that opium is used to make Morphine, Codeine, and other non-synthetic opioids for medical purposes.

Afghan
 

Was a huge waste of money! When will the world learn. Gone are the days of Alexander.

Stop trying to interject our western values onto another country's social structure. How would you like if they did the same to us? You wouldn't! We went there to get Osama bin Laden. Job complete - even though he wasn't there. We were in Afghanistan too long. British and Soviets learned that lesson long ago.