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.
  •  Whiskey Pickle   ( @whiskeypickle@lemmy.ml ) English
    101•1 year ago

    lmao, no it doesn’t. the US didn’t go to Afghanistan to eradicate opium. the US didn’t give a shit about it at all, lmao.

    do tankies so blindly hate the US that they’ll give the Taliban a bj just to try to make the US look bad? wow…

    •  Fazoo   ( @Fazoo@lemmy.ml ) 
      64•1 year ago

      We also didn’t threaten to kill the farmers for growing it. No shit the Taliban was successful. Comply or die. They’re the ones who were profiting from it anyway. Now that they’re in charge again, religion trumps financial needs.

    •  NightOwl   ( @NightOwl@lemm.ee ) OP
      13•1 year ago

      The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War is a summary of the Washington Post’s reporting on Afghanistan, specifically on the US government’s own internal assessments from all levels of the military and political administration. In it, you’ll find this quote:

      Of all the failures in Afghanistan, the war on opium ranked among the most feckless. During two decades, the United States spent more than $9 billion on a dizzying array of programs to deter Afghanistan from supplying the world with heroin. None of the measures worked. In many cases, they made things worse.

      The US doesn’t need “tankies” or anyone else to make themselves look bad as far as the Afghan drug trade goes.

        •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ko4abp.com ) English
          5•1 year ago

          person replies back with factual evidence contradicting your personal beliefs in a foreign war, “lmao, so?”

          Where is here? The World News community? The only one I see whining is the pickle. Is this a small step away from saying people should go back from where they came from and leave this social space you’ve claimed as your own? IDK wtf you’re thinking coming into someone else’s post, refuting verified evidence, then proclaiming hate because its context makes the US look subpar. What’s your point, you love the US, why come on here and have to ignorantly shout it?

          •  Whiskey Pickle   ( @whiskeypickle@lemmy.ml ) English
            7•1 year ago

            person replies back with factual evidence contradicting your personal beliefs in a foreign war, “lmao, so?”

            you mean an Association Fallacy that fails to prove their claims? US Maries also peed while they were there. That doesn’t prove it’s why they were there.

            •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ko4abp.com ) English
              4•1 year ago

              You:

              the US didn’t give a shit about it at all

              Response:

              the United States spent more than $9 billion on a dizzying array of programs to deter Afghanistan from supplying the world with heroin

              You:

              lmao, so?

              That doesn’t prove it’s why they were there.

              Now the goal post has been moved to WhY?!? were we there? Throw up some more pretty images to explain the situation please.

              •  Whiskey Pickle   ( @whiskeypickle@lemmy.ml ) English
                8•1 year ago

                Now the goal post has been moved to WhY

                wow, that’s quite the pretzel you’d twisted yourself into trying score some imaginary “point”.

                The “goal post” was always the “why” and it was never to eradicate opium. Every source, every article linked here bears that out. all that’s ben proven here is:

                the US didn’t give a shit about it at all

                ya got me there. they did care. still doesn’t prove that it’s why the US was there, and, in fact, several of the linked sources directly state to the contrary against claims that it was.

                try not to hurt yourself with more of those mental gymnastics. it’s hilarious to watch

                edit: ya know, you probably wouldn’t be so outraged and angry all the time if you didn’t constant make stuff up to be outraged and angry about.

  •  pjhenry1216   ( @pjhenry1216@kbin.social ) 
    68•1 year ago

    This is one of the dumbest articles I ever read. The entire government changed. Taliban can be dictators. The US couldn’t. On top of this, they essentially had two years to switch to wheat before this occurred. Something that was less economically feasible over two years ago due to an unfortunate food shortage in the area now.

    Asking why someone couldn’t get something done as quickly as a dictator is something a naive child asks.

  •  bauhaus   ( @bauhaus@lemmy.ml ) English
    64•1 year ago

    from MediaBiasFactCheck.com

    Mint Press News – Bias and Credibility

    FAR LEFT BIAS

    QUESTIONABLE SOURCE

    A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

    • Overall, we rate Mint Press Far-Left Biased and Questionable based on the publication of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience anti-Israel propaganda, poor sourcing, failed fact checks, and false claims.

    Detailed Report

    • Reasoning: Propaganda, Conspiracies, Pseudoscience, Poor Sources, Failed Fact Checks
    • Bias Rating: FAR LEFT
    • Factual Reporting: LOW
    • Country: USA
    • Press Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
    • Media Type: Website
    • Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
    • MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

    History

    Mint Press News is an independent Minnesota-based news website launched in 2012 by Mnar Muhawesh. It covers political, economic, foreign affairs, and environmental issues. According to their about page, “We focus our coverage on issues relating to the effects of special interest groups, big business and lobbying efforts and how they shape policies at home and abroad, including American foreign policy. Through the lens of social justice and human rights, we report on how these dynamics drive our foreign affairs and impact the world, and examine the effects they have on our democracy and freedoms as defined by the constitution.”

    Analysis / Bias

    Mint Press presents news with a strong left-leaning bias in story selection. Headlines and articles use moderately loaded language like this: NFL Freezes Policy Barring Players From Kneeling During Anthem. This particular story is republished from the conspiracy website ZeroHedge. Typically, Mint Press sources their information, but sometimes it is from Mixed factual or conspiracy websites. In general, story selection moderately favors the left, such as this Trump Administration Opens Door for Corporate Attack on Vulnerable Wildlife.

    Read more at MediaBiasFactCheck.com

    •  SLfgb   ( @SLfgb@feddit.nl ) 
      11•1 year ago

      May I suggest you read the article before commenting

      Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, cutting down Afghanistan’s poppy fields.

      •  unscholarly_source   ( @unscholarly_source@lemmy.ca ) 
        33•1 year ago

        And may I suggest you do some research before replying?

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65787391

        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.

        •  SLfgb   ( @SLfgb@feddit.nl ) 
          6•1 year ago

          The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people

          That was my point exactly.

          But invoking the spectre of “Sharia law” is just as vague as referring to “US law”.

      •  pjhenry1216   ( @pjhenry1216@kbin.social ) 
        17•1 year ago

        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.

        •  SLfgb   ( @SLfgb@feddit.nl ) 
          5•1 year ago

          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).

  •  orcrist   ( @orcrist@lemm.ee ) 
    38•1 year ago

    No, it doesn’t raise questions. We knew back in 2003 that there was never a long-term plan. The point was to kill a guy, and then to do some military spending. A major success, on those lines.

    The Taliban are terrible, though.

  •  Horsey   ( @Horsey@kbin.social ) 
    25•1 year ago

    This one is pretty simple to me: the Americans weren’t putting guns to peoples head and murdering people for drug trafficking on the spot. When the Taliban shows up at your house with guns, and just slaughters your whole family, because they think that you have opium that’s a much stronger deterrent than whatever the Americans were doing.

    •  maporita   ( @maporita@unilem.org ) 
      2•1 year ago

      I’m not sure if you noticed but when you’re scrolling down your feed list, just below the link itself is a little bit of text that shows the source. Just read it … takes a fraction of a second… and if it’s from somewhere you don’t like then don’t open it. Just move on.

      Moderators … please pay no attention to posters like this, you’re doing a fine job and we thank you. Keep the news coming from various sources abd let us decide for ourselves if we want to read it. Like adults.

  •  Aesthesiaphilia   ( @Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social ) 
    20•1 year ago

    MintPress News (MPN) is an American far-left[1] news website founded and edited by Mnar Adley (née Muhawesh) which was launched in January 2012[2] and also publishes the MintCast podcast. It covers political, economic, foreign affairs and environmental issues. Editorially, MintPress News supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and the governments of Russia, Iran, and Syria.[3][4] It opposes the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia,[5] and reports geopolitical events from an anti-Western perspective.[6] In one contentious article, MintPress News falsely asserted that the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria was perpetrated by rebel groups rather than by the Syrian government.[4]

    Tankie propaganda. Ignore.