Kathianne
12-29-2007, 10:36 PM
it's been posted before.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-perfect-evil-coming-to-roost.htm
October 30, 2007
Iraq is looking better month by month. But at the current rate, surely we shall fail in Afghanistan:
Opium Funding Afghan Unrest
KABUL The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said yesterday he estimated that Afghanistan’s rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.
Gen. Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, added he had been told by an international specialist that his figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.
The cultivation of opium, 93 percent of whose world supply comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations is undermining everything the government and its international allies were trying to do, he said. Afghanistan’s opium production grew by 34 percent this year, according to a U.N. survey.
Washington Times
October 19, 2007
Pg. 15
———————————————-
A great deal of flak came in for my 2006 reporting from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, that on-the-ground reporting is proving correct nearly to the letter. The following three-part report summarizing my observations and experiences in Afghanistan more than a year ago, warned of the growing threat of a narco-fueled Taliban increasingly able to challenge a national government overgrown with incompetency and choked with corruption.
I have characterized Afghanistan as little more than a hunting lodge for our special operations forces. Since the Afghan campaign has been largely a special forces war from the beginning, we have been able to transition with great secrecy from near victory, to abysmal performance, to what has now become a sustainable human-hunting resort. Our special operations forces are out there hunting Taliban and al Qaeda, outside of public view—although it appears that “the public” is hardly clamoring for news from Afghanistan—while the country devolves into the consummate narco-state.
There are many indicators that the Afghan campaign is at this date a complete failure; how much has anything changed from when “The Perfect Evil” was published nearly a year ago? At the time of its publication, I intended it as a warning that action needed to be taken, and fast, before the momentum of decline reached avalanche velocity.
The war is finally turning a positive corner here in Iraq. If Iraq continues to progress so rapidly, I will leave here in 2008, with plans to go to Afghanistan.
From 2006:
....
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-perfect-evil-coming-to-roost.htm
October 30, 2007
Iraq is looking better month by month. But at the current rate, surely we shall fail in Afghanistan:
Opium Funding Afghan Unrest
KABUL The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said yesterday he estimated that Afghanistan’s rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.
Gen. Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, added he had been told by an international specialist that his figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.
The cultivation of opium, 93 percent of whose world supply comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations is undermining everything the government and its international allies were trying to do, he said. Afghanistan’s opium production grew by 34 percent this year, according to a U.N. survey.
Washington Times
October 19, 2007
Pg. 15
———————————————-
A great deal of flak came in for my 2006 reporting from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, that on-the-ground reporting is proving correct nearly to the letter. The following three-part report summarizing my observations and experiences in Afghanistan more than a year ago, warned of the growing threat of a narco-fueled Taliban increasingly able to challenge a national government overgrown with incompetency and choked with corruption.
I have characterized Afghanistan as little more than a hunting lodge for our special operations forces. Since the Afghan campaign has been largely a special forces war from the beginning, we have been able to transition with great secrecy from near victory, to abysmal performance, to what has now become a sustainable human-hunting resort. Our special operations forces are out there hunting Taliban and al Qaeda, outside of public view—although it appears that “the public” is hardly clamoring for news from Afghanistan—while the country devolves into the consummate narco-state.
There are many indicators that the Afghan campaign is at this date a complete failure; how much has anything changed from when “The Perfect Evil” was published nearly a year ago? At the time of its publication, I intended it as a warning that action needed to be taken, and fast, before the momentum of decline reached avalanche velocity.
The war is finally turning a positive corner here in Iraq. If Iraq continues to progress so rapidly, I will leave here in 2008, with plans to go to Afghanistan.
From 2006:
....