As Napoleon observed "In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations". So it's amazing to see the Americans completely ignore this useful maxim when they here urge the Afghan people to eradicate the poppy fields via crop-spraying. Aside from the negative environmental benefits of such as strategy, it is hardly going to popularize the presence of foreign troops in the country given that eradication of the poppy fields would also destroy a $750 million industry which employs up to 3 million people. But then I guess a few thousand NATO troops will manage just dandy against several million hostile, local people whose livelihoods and environments have just been ruined.
Monday, October 02, 2006
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