At 10:54 AM -0700 22/2/09, Chris Gehlker wrote:
>On Feb 22, 2009, at 9:36 AM, Charles Bennett wrote:
>
>> I'm not optimistic about this at all.
>>
>> Politically, Obama chastised Bush for ignoring Afghanistan (rightly
>> so) but as Obama commits more and more troops into the region, and I
>> think he must,
>> it will become "Obama's war". (As in, be careful what you ask for,
>> you just might get it)
>>
>> Personally, I think he is in a no-win situation, but I will grant that
>> he is politically agile and has some goodwill stored up.
>
>We need to recognize inelastic demand. Every initial success we have
>against the Taliban simply drives up the price of opiates and channels
>more resources to them.
>
>The US has only one strategy for defeating the Taliban and that
>involves greatly increasing the output of the legal poppy farms in
>California and flooding North America and Europe with high quality
>cheap or free heroin. We don't seem to have the political will to do
>this.
There is an alternative. We could start buying Afghani
poppies for legal opiates. Pay more than the Taliban does to Afghani
growers. It is not as if there is no legitimate market for opiates.
>Fortunately, we don't need to defeat the Taliban. We just need to
>reach an accommodation with then where they stop providing sanctuary
>to as-Qaeda. Obama's people and many in the military and even
>conservative politicians versed in foreign policy seem to get this.
That would be a morally bankrupt strategy - but also,
unlikely to really succeed.
Cheers
David
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