Drugs And Terror

It seems the Bush admin is finding new ways to spend the taxpayers money. For years the dismal failure that is the War on Drugs has bled cash from the treasury and what has it accomplished? Not much, Batman.

I have been listening to the newest slogan, Drugs fund terrorism. The poppies in Afghanistan are the funds the Taliban use to fund their terror attacks and then there is al Qaeda. First of all, the Taliban are fighting an invasion force just like they did the USSR. Second, al Qaeda gets its funds from countries like Saudi Arabia and others in the region. Then it is not the poppies that funds al Qaeda; it is OIL! You know the stuff that is used to make the gas you waste everyday?

The Taliban is a homegrown resistance that is fighting for their country. OK, they aligned themselves with al Qaeda, but I mean they would have done that with anyone who was fighting against the invasion. They are a strict brutal group, but their concern is the country not the punishing of all "infidels".

Now they are talking about spray the poppy fields with chemicals, as a way to stop the opium production. Any of you people ever hear of Agent orange? I was a chemical used in Vietnam during that war as a defoliant. It killed miles upon miles of vegetation and as an added side effect it caused a cancer like disease if you were exposed to it. Oh yeah, many Americans are and were being treated for their exposure to the chemical.

And now they will try it again. I guess enough time has gone by that few will recall the damage it did to Vietnam. Plus you will be eliminating the income of many Afghanis who have been growing and selling their product for hundreds of years. So to say that it is funding terror is just plain stupid. The farmers do not give a crap what they do with it as long as they buy it. On another hand, what will this chemical do to the environment? They may be effecting more than the poppy fields.

People need to stop condemning the farmers! They are trying to care for their families. Ok let us say, the government pays them to grow, say turnips instead of poppies. and good plan? NO! They will make $250 a year with turnips or they could make $1500 a year with poppies. Which would you grow?

The Bush machine is just trying to put a simple face on a complex issue. It is drugs fault there is terrorism, not the fact that the US policies suck!

CHUQ