Imperialism and illicit drugs commonly go together. However, with Taliban opium eradication efforts in full effect, heroin is in short supply, and experts fear that a new fentanyl crisis could be brewing in the US.
Balancing an AK-47 assault rifle slung around his left shoulder and a large stick in his right hand, Abdul hits the heads of poppies as hard as he can. The stalks fly in the air, as does the sap from the poppy bulb, releasing the distinctive, pungent smell of opium in its most raw form.
In April 2022, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada decreed that cultivation of the poppy - from which opium, the key ingredient for the drug heroin can be extracted - was strictly prohibited. Anyone violating the ban would have their field destroyed and be penalised according to Sharia law.
The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people 🤦
And punishment under Sharia law is much more severe than getting beat by a stick, which isn’t something that obviously will never fly in the US.
Something the US couldn’t do under the previous government. Plus many switched to wheat beforehand anyway due to food shortages. The US didn’t rule Afghanistan and had to work within Afghanistan’s government. That government is gone. The Taliban can act like a dictator. Sure, armed with little more than sticks, but farmers had a two year lag beforehand to switch to wheat. This ban wasn’t just announced it’s old. It was just never enforced til now. I mean, it’s ridiculous to compare the two situations. If the US did the same, at the time they were there, there would have been total economic collapse plus basically commiting war crimes.
iirc there was barely any opium production in Afghanistan pre-2001 under Taliban rule. It was in the following 20 years that the industry boomed and a lot of those government officials you refer to and their relatives got extremely rich from that, including President Karzai’s own little brother. The US put those people in power and propped them up for over 2 decades.
It’s pretty clear the US decision-makers tried to eradicate poppy just as little as they tried to create peace in the region (not at all).
May I suggest you read the article before commenting
And may I suggest you do some research before replying?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65787391
The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people 🤦
And punishment under Sharia law is much more severe than getting beat by a stick, which isn’t something that obviously will never fly in the US.
That was my point exactly.
But invoking the spectre of “Sharia law” is just as vague as referring to “US law”.
Something the US couldn’t do under the previous government. Plus many switched to wheat beforehand anyway due to food shortages. The US didn’t rule Afghanistan and had to work within Afghanistan’s government. That government is gone. The Taliban can act like a dictator. Sure, armed with little more than sticks, but farmers had a two year lag beforehand to switch to wheat. This ban wasn’t just announced it’s old. It was just never enforced til now. I mean, it’s ridiculous to compare the two situations. If the US did the same, at the time they were there, there would have been total economic collapse plus basically commiting war crimes.
iirc there was barely any opium production in Afghanistan pre-2001 under Taliban rule. It was in the following 20 years that the industry boomed and a lot of those government officials you refer to and their relatives got extremely rich from that, including President Karzai’s own little brother. The US put those people in power and propped them up for over 2 decades. It’s pretty clear the US decision-makers tried to eradicate poppy just as little as they tried to create peace in the region (not at all).