I’m only kind of kidding.

When it comes to Afghanistan, we can either fight the Taliban and al Qaeda or the war on drugs, we can’t do both. We tried that after our initial “victory” over the Taliban and all we did was fund the Taliban’s resurgence. Afghanistan is incredibly poor and many are dependent on the poppy fields to make a living. You can’t destroy poppy fields and expect to remain popular, at least not until you’ve built up a better and more diverse economy than the country currently has.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the U.S. military should be participating in the drug trade.

Why can’t the penduluum ever stop in the damned middle? First we’re eradicating everything in sight. Now we’re actively participating? Why can’t we just leave it alone, live and let live, and all of that?

we could always buy the crop and use it for legal pharmaceuticals. I mean there are legal products for this crop.

That’s like saying we should employ Iraqis to rebuild Iraq. Much more keeping with neoconservative values to ship in cheaper labor from other countries, who care about all of the angry, unemployed young Iraqi males with nothing to do? What’re they going to do, form an army?