It's no longer clear what their angle is over at the BBC or what line they are pushing:
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says opium cultivation has dropped by 22% in a year and production by 10%. The biggest falls have been in Helmand province, but levels remain higher than three years ago, when British troops began fighting Taliban militants there...
This year there were 69,833 hectares devoted to poppy growing in Helmand, a sharp fall from 103,590 hectares in 2008, the report found. However, this year's figure was also more than double the 26,500 hectares used for poppy growing in the province in 2005, the year before British troops deployed in the area.
Maybe they don't know themselves any more.
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5 comments:
Why do you think the BBC has an 'angle' on the Afghan heroin crop?
Brink back the Taleban, I say - at least they were successful in slashing opium production on their watch.
Don't know what to make of these stats.
LFAT - are you sure? My understanding was that the Taliban used the opium crop as currency.
See essential analysis in Small Wars Journal June 14 2009. The blog contains an extract and comments, and a link to the full PDF, which is an excellent briefing on the economics and politics of opium in Afghanistan.
Poppy is Not the Most Profitable Crop, It's the only crop.
Given that the world needs a certain amount of opium for legitimate purposes, never mind the disputed ones, and Afghanis are very good at producing it, I simply can't see why the world doesn't treat it like any other crop as part of a mixed economy in Afghanistan and set about regulating it and securing the Afghani farmers' markets to bring at least some economic stability to their lives.
Letters From a Tory,
Yes, what an excellent idea. In order that we reduce the supply of heroin (thus raising the street price and the crime rate), let's have back a fascist sponsor of terrorism.
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