The Failure Of A Major Mission In Afghanistan In Two Charts

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-uss-failure-to-end-afghanistans-opium-trade-2014-10

Opium poppy cultivation sprawled to more than a half-million acres in Afghanistan last year, a record according to a report by the Inspector General responsible for overseeing Afghanistan's reconstruction.

Two charts in the report convey the sheer depth of the US's failure to end a globally illegal industry that directly funds the Taliban.

One of the report's charts used UN data to show how market forces appear to hold sway over the country's opium production levels.

That market paid amazingly little heed to over a decade of external efforts to crush it.



This map shows that the increase was a national phenomenon. It's not as if a couple of regions enjoyed a bumper crop. Opium is a growth industry everywhere:



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-uss-failure-to-end-afghanistans-opium-trade-2014-10#ixzz3H9f2NzaU

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-uss-failure-to-end-afghanistans-opium-trade-2014-10#ixzz3H9eFkofj

[KG]

1. well, thank goodness the prez is getting us outta there! oh wait, he isn't!

[Octafish]

2. It's money, grown on trees.

The heroin it produces is good as cash, completely untraceable, accepted by friends of Oliver North around the world.