Word: nato
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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COMMANDER JEFFREY EGGERS, a top adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, on the reluctance of U.S. and NATO commanders to eradicate opium crops in Marjah; the stance is part of an effort to win over Afghans residing in former Taliban territory...
...Karzai would have been cut adrift some time ago if there were any other viable alternative on whom the U.S. could pin its strategy. The wily President knows that the presence of foreign forces in his country is deeply unpopular, particularly when civilians are killed in the course of NATO military operations. Karzai, moreover, is humiliated and shown to be powerless when his protestations over such operations are ignored by his Western patrons. So while he may have been installed by a U.S.-led invasion, if Karzai is to survive the departure of Western forces, he will have to reinvent...
...NATO officials believe that at least part of this revenue goes to insurgent groups to finance their attacks against coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, where almost all of the 139 soldiers killed this year have died. The report found that farmers grow about 42,000 acres (17,000 hectares) of cannabis in half of the country's 34 provinces - largely in the south. That is where Afghanistan's most fertile land is, the report says, and its rich soil produces an "astonishing yield" of potent hashish of about 320 lb. (about 145 kg) per hectare (about 2.5 acres) - more than...
That might be true. But the U.N.'s findings show how daunting a task it is for Afghan and NATO officials to persuade thousands of farmers to switch from growing drugs to growing food. Farmers can earn about three times as much money growing cannabis as growing wheat: about $3,900 per hectare, compared with $1,200 per hectare. What's more, cannabis is even more lucrative to grow than opium poppies, which yield about $3,600 per hectare. It's also far cheaper to grow cannabis than poppies, requiring little sophisticated cultivation. The report says it is an almost...
Despite the new U.N. findings, Afghan and NATO forces are unlikely to start trying to eradicate the cannabis crops, in part because Western policies over the past several years aimed at eradicating Afghanistan's mammoth opium crops are widely regarded by U.S. officials as having failed miserably. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told G-8 leaders in Italy last year that the antidrug efforts in Afghanistan "did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work." (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...