Poll: DELETED_74993

Were we right to get involved in Libya?

  • Yes

    Votes: 306 50.9%

  • No

    Votes: 295 49.1%
  • Total voters
    601
Status
Not open for further replies.
dirtydog said:
No but it is the world's main producer of opium which the Taliban stopped production of, and we couldn't have that as it's just too profitable. Since we invaded they are the world's top producer again and all that lovely money is sloshing through London and New York.
Click to expand...

OMFG you're right, we need heroin in our cities!
 
Andr3w said:
OMFG you're right, we need heroin in our cities!
Click to expand...

Before 9/11...

Taleban Wipes out Afghanistan's Opium Production
Jim Teeple
Jalalabad
8 Apr 2001 21:23 UTC

U.N. drug control officials say Taleban authorities in Afghanistan have wiped out the country's opium crop - the largest such crop in the world. U.N. officials say the action is unprecedented, and Afghanistan's former poppy farmers need urgent assistance to help them make the transition to farming legitimate crops. That transition is already well underway, but many Afghan farmers think giving up poppy farming will mean a harder life.

Digging an irrigation ditch in the hot sun is not easy work. For 56-year-old Jamroz, who like many Afghans goes by one name, the work is backbreaking. It is also something he says he is not used to doing.

Until recently Jamroz did not have to worry too much about constantly irrigating his fields. That is because until recently Jamroz grew opium poppies. Poppies are an ideal crop for an aging farmer - they do not require much water. The only real work involved in farming poppies comes when it is time to scrape the raw opium gum off the plant.

Farmers like Jamroz have been growing poppies in the shadows of the Black Mountains in eastern Afghanistan since before Alexander the Great passed this way more than 2,000 years ago. But they no longer do. Last year, Taleban authorities told them to stop. Now, Jamroz and his neighbors plant wheat and onions in their fields.

Surveying his fields, Jamroz says he willingly switched to growing wheat, but his new crop has failed, due to the worst drought to strike Afghanistan in decades. He says Taleban authorities promised he would receive international aid to compensate for the loss of his poppy income, but so far none has come.

Jamroz stopped growing opium poppies last year, after the Taleban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar banned poppy farming. The Islamic leader backed up the ban with a religious edict declaring poppy farming to be un-Islamic.
Click to expand...
http://www.institute-for-afghan-studies.org/AFGHAN CONFLICT/Drugs/Taliban Wipes Out Opium.htm


Today...

Afghanistan is, as of March, 2010, the greatest illicit opium producer in the world, ahead of Burma (Myanmar) and the "Golden Triangle". Afghanistan is the main producer of opium in "Golden Crescent". Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 92% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.[1]
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan


Wake up.
 
I can understand people who are anti war / anti interfering, but dirtydog seems to think we live in some state run propaganda network living in suppressive society.

His views scare me and tbh he should just leave the country and go and live in some idealist nation, but still I’m sure he will still be convinced the state is against him, he sounds like the fat dude who lives in his mums basement in Diehard 4.0.
 
I've just realised it was a 2001 article and not a recent one, before everyone started to spell it Taliban.

My mistake.
 
It can be spelled either way, yes.

If you don't like that source, try the BBC. This article is from 2003.

Afghanistan retook its place as the world's leading producer of heroin last year, after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban which had banned cultivation of opium poppies.

The finding was made in a key drug report, distributed in Kabul on Sunday by the US State Department, which supports almost identical findings by the United Nations last week.

Low-grade heroin is refined in Afghanistan from opium, which is manufactured from the extract of poppies.

"The size of the opium harvest in 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer," the report said.

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said the area of land used to cultivate opium poppies reached 30,750 hectares, compared with 1,685 hectares in 2001.
Click to expand...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2814861.stm
 
Just listening to LBC, some libyan rang in with a horror story (unverified but probably true) about just how brutal gaddafi is. Apparently, some kid was once waving a flag (not sure what flag but obviously anti gaddafi) and he had his head cut off and thrown to his brothers to play football with.
 
Merlin5 said:
Just listening to LBC, some libyan rang in with a horror story (unverified but probably true) about just how brutal gaddafi is. Apparently, some kid was once waving a flag (not sure what flag but obviously anti gaddafi) and he had his head cut off and thrown to his brothers to play football with.
Click to expand...

Why would that be "probably true"?

Sounds a little far fetched tbh.
 
Castiel said:
Why would that be "probably true"?

Sounds a little far fetched tbh.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the propaganda during the first Iraq war, remember that?

Nayirah stated that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though reporters did not have access to Kuwait at the time, her testimony was regarded as credible at the time and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf war.

Her story was initially corroborated by Amnesty International and testimony from evacuees.

Following the liberation of Kuwait, reporters were given access to the country and found the story of stolen incubators unsubstantiated. However, they did find that a number of people died when nurses and doctors fled the country.

In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Ṣabaḥ Arabic: نيره الصباح‎) and that she was the daughter of the Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government.

Her testimony has since largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda.
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)
 
Firestar_3x said:
Well well well, looks like i missed all the action last night, but my predictions do seem correct.

Nice to see a British sub launch some cruise missiles i hope we got to test the Astute class launch systems and give the crews some battle experience.

I love how the British do things, 3,000 mile trip, mid air refueling, stick some long range weapons into him and fly home, it's logistical things like this that make us one of the best in the world, shows the rest of the world that no matter how far away the theater of operation is we will get to it, knock seven bells out of you and fly home, Go Britain!
Click to expand...



Falklands?:cool:
 
concerning?

"1256: Russia, which abstained from the UN vote on a no-fly zone, calls on the UK, France and the US to "stop non-selective use of force" in Libya, Reuters reports."
 
Tim said:
Falklands?:cool:
Click to expand...

It's the never give up attitude amongst other things which makes me proud. Seems like it was a Trafalgar class submarine which did the missile launches, Very interested to read about the B-2 bombers being used, I don't think you could assemble a more competent and technologically advanced coordinated strike group if your tried.

I do want to know why we can't launch sorties out of Akrotiri yet, lots of other stuff landing at the base thought.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom