Taliban: not as stoned.

[LMNO]

News reports say that the Taliban is receiving less drug money than previously thought.  Which means the poppy eradication strategies we've been using don't really hurt them all that much.

Not quite sure what that means going forward, but I thought I should bring it up.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The poppies are a ruse... their real stock and trade in Alamut Black. 

[Cain]

It doesn't make up much of their funding, no.

Some of it, but not much more.

[Jenne]

I think their reversal on the poppies/drug trade was part fuck-you to America and part come on in, the water's fine to the farmers they'd been previously hanging for the offense in the 90's.

[Cain]

They were actually stockpiling opium in the 90s, too.  Controlling access to the market, to push up the value and thus the profits.  The whole "we haet teh drugz" stuff really was for show, and killing farmers was about controlling who grew the goods than actually, you know, stopping the drug trade with typically brutal Taliban methods.

[Cain]

Guess who does fund the Taliban, though?

The American taxpayer, apparently http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/taliban/funding-the-taliban

The manager of an Afghan firm with lucrative construction contracts with the U.S. government builds in a minimum of 20 percent for the Taliban in his cost estimates. The manager, who will not speak openly, has told friends privately that he makes in the neighborhood of $1 million per month. Out of this, $200,000 is siphoned off for the insurgents.

If negotiations fall through, the project will come to harm — road workers may be attacked or killed, bridges may be blown up, engineers may be assassinated.

The degree of cooperation and coordination between the Taliban and aid workers is surprising, and would most likely make funders extremely uncomfortable.

One Afghan contractor, speaking privately, told friends of one project he was overseeing in the volatile south. The province cannot be mentioned, nor the particular project.

"I was building a bridge," he said, one evening over drinks. "The local Taliban commander called and said 'don't build a bridge there, we'll have to blow it up.' I asked him to let me finish the bridge, collect the money — then they could blow it up whenever they wanted. We agreed, and I completed my project."

In the south, no contract can be implemented without the Taliban taking a cut, sometimes at various steps along the way.

One contractor in the southern province of Helmand was negotiating with a local supplier for a large shipment of pipes. The pipes had to be brought in from Pakistan, so the supplier tacked on about 30 percent extra for the Taliban, to ensure that the pipes reached Lashkar Gah safely.

Once the pipes were given over to the contractor, he had to negotiate with the Taliban again to get the pipes out to the project site. This was added to the transportation costs.

"We assume that our people are paying off the Taliban," said the foreign contractor in charge of the project.

In Farah province, local officials report that the Taliban are taking up to 40 percent of the money coming in for the National Solidarity Program, one of the country's most successful community reconstruction projects, which has dispensed hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the country over the past six years.

LOL pwned

[Cramulus]

TAXES = TERRORISM!

[Captain Utopia]

That's awesome horrormirth right there. You know, nothing quite makes me hate my own species like my own species does.

[President Television]

Guess who does fund the Taliban, though?

The American taxpayer, apparently http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/taliban/funding-the-taliban

The manager of an Afghan firm with lucrative construction contracts with the U.S. government builds in a minimum of 20 percent for the Taliban in his cost estimates. The manager, who will not speak openly, has told friends privately that he makes in the neighborhood of $1 million per month. Out of this, $200,000 is siphoned off for the insurgents.

If negotiations fall through, the project will come to harm — road workers may be attacked or killed, bridges may be blown up, engineers may be assassinated.

The degree of cooperation and coordination between the Taliban and aid workers is surprising, and would most likely make funders extremely uncomfortable.

One Afghan contractor, speaking privately, told friends of one project he was overseeing in the volatile south. The province cannot be mentioned, nor the particular project.

"I was building a bridge," he said, one evening over drinks. "The local Taliban commander called and said 'don't build a bridge there, we'll have to blow it up.' I asked him to let me finish the bridge, collect the money — then they could blow it up whenever they wanted. We agreed, and I completed my project."

In the south, no contract can be implemented without the Taliban taking a cut, sometimes at various steps along the way.

One contractor in the southern province of Helmand was negotiating with a local supplier for a large shipment of pipes. The pipes had to be brought in from Pakistan, so the supplier tacked on about 30 percent extra for the Taliban, to ensure that the pipes reached Lashkar Gah safely.

Once the pipes were given over to the contractor, he had to negotiate with the Taliban again to get the pipes out to the project site. This was added to the transportation costs.

"We assume that our people are paying off the Taliban," said the foreign contractor in charge of the project.

In Farah province, local officials report that the Taliban are taking up to 40 percent of the money coming in for the National Solidarity Program, one of the country's most successful community reconstruction projects, which has dispensed hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the country over the past six years.

LOL pwned

Beautiful.

[The Johnny]

News reports say that the Taliban is receiving less drug money than previously thought.  Which means the poppy eradication strategies we've been using don't really hurt them all that much.

Not quite sure what that means going forward, but I thought I should bring it up.

YOU COMMIE !!11 ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT THE WAR ON DRUGS IS POINTLESS !?!??!?!?!

[Cain]

And since this post, way back in August, we have discovered that Hamid Karzai's brother seems to have quite a hand in the drug trade.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

And since this post, way back in August, we have discovered that Hamid Karzai's brother seems to have quite a hand in the drug trade.

Good thing he was democratically elected!!!

[Jenne]

Karzai's riposte to that criticism, though, is that the West (i.e. US) is just as dirty when they get into Afdamnistan, anyway.  Why should he and his be any cleaner?

...yeah, good ol' Afghanistan.  Gives everyone a reason to be an asshole.