Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Instead the West created poverty and economic collapse and destroyed the poppy fields, the only economically viable option for most of the territories.
I am sorry but that is the direct opposite of what I understand to be the truth.
When the Taliban took over (before the US got there), they destroyed the poppy fields and all but eliminated heroin trafficking. When the US came in and put Karzai in power, the heroin trade came back. Karzai's brother was well known to be the biggest heroin trafficker in the country.
The claim that the west destroyed the poppy fields is simply false. The Taliban destroyed the heroin trade; the US brought it back.
And in general, you can look back in history and see that wherever the US military goes, drug trade thrives. Heroin smuggling was huge during the Vietnam war. During Reagan's covert war in central America, the CIA was flying in cocaine by the planeload. Even Sixty Minutes did a piece on it, how mainstream is that? This isn't secret knowledge. Now we're in Afghanistan and the heroin trade is thriving.
I truly don't know how you can claim that the west "destroyed the poppy fields." The Taliban destroyed the poppy fields, the US brought them back.
The US, which runs a global "war on drugs," is behind the trade in drugs. You could look it up.