punditman says: The following excerpt puts the lie to the bogus claim that the Taliban are drug peddlers...
...Nobody has denied the sincerity of the Taliban's crazy religious zeal, and they were as unlikely to sell you heroin as a bottle of Johnnie Walker.
They stamped out the opium trade, and impoverished and drove out the drug warlords whose warring and rapacity had ruined what was left of the country after the Soviet war.
That is about the only good thing you can say about the Taliban; there are plenty of very bad things to say about them. But their suppression of the opium trade and the drug barons is undeniable fact.
Now we are occupying the country, that has changed. According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60 per cent. This year will be even bigger.
Full article...
The above article tells a tale of rampant corruption within Afghanistan's Western-installed Karzai government, which is comprised of brutal warlords who are up to their necks in the heroin trade. This has led to record crops and cheap prices on the streets of our major cities.
So, I have an idea for a new ribbon for the pro-war crowd to attach to the back of their hummers (though I doubt they would understand):
"Support the Troops, the War and the Heroin Trade."
