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Word: opium (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Going to a decentralized Afghan end state - with local authorities providing their own security - means the national government's security apparatus can be much smaller," Biddle says. The bad news, of course, is that many such provincial officials are little more than warlords, who often profit from trafficking in opium. The United Nations estimated last month that the Taliban and its allies - including some of those provincial officials - could clear nearly $500 million in the drug trade this year. If the U.S. and its allies need to find a way to bring home their troops while leaving behind a modicum...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Why the US Will Scale Down Its Goals in Afghanistan | 12/14/2008 | See Source »

...harbored by the Islamic extremist Taliban government. But the enemy escaped into Pakistan, and for the past seven years, Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the "Taliban." These ragtag bands are funded by opium profits and led by assorted religious extremists and druglords, many of whom have safe havens in Pakistan...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Aimless War: Why Are We in Afghanistan? | 12/11/2008 | See Source »

...after the drug trade that funds the insurgency, in part because some of the proceeds are also skimmed by the friends, officials and perhaps family members of the stupendously corrupt government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Helmand province is mostly desert, but it produces half the world's opium supply along a narrow strip of irrigated land that straddles the Helmand River. The drug trade - Afghanistan provides more than 90% of the world's opium - permeates everything. A former governor, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was caught with nine tons of opium, enough to force him out of office, but not enough...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Aimless War: Why Are We in Afghanistan? | 12/11/2008 | See Source »

...strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions. The tribes have often been at one another's throats - a good part of the current "Taliban" uprising is nothing more than standard tribal rivalries juiced by Western arms and opium profits - except when foreigners have invaded the area, in which case the Afghans have united and slowly humiliated conquerors from Alexander the Great to the Soviets...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Aimless War: Why Are We in Afghanistan? | 12/11/2008 | See Source »

...strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions. The tribes have often been at one another's throats - a good part of the current "Taliban" uprising is nothing more than standard tribal rivalries juiced by Western arms and opium profits - except when foreigners have invaded the area, in which case the Afghans have united and slowly humiliated conquerors from Alexander the Great to the Soviets...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Aimless War | 12/10/2008 | See Source »

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