I DARE the president to answer this dangerous question.

[Fovea]

How bad is the addiction problem with troops in
Iraq and Afghanistan?

Follow me here. We give out troops speed to stay on task, and we are fighting in Afghanistan, smack capital of the world.

In Vietnam, there was a significant battlefield drug use problem
and the then Burmese opium trade ran right through the war zone.

With so many private contractos swarming over the occupation zones, the
opportunity to move a little dope on the side, or rather a lot of dope on the side must be near omnipresent. And if the troops can't interdict explosives, they sure as hell ain't stopping dope.

Yet I never hear anything about GI Joe or Jane being smacked out.
Is that because it is not happening? Somehow, I fear that this is not the case, and we are going to have a huge ass problem to deal with in the next few years.

[FlemingsGhost]

1. Yup ... I said the very same thing at the get-go!

Do you know how many Russians climbed onto the Horse?

I believe I put it this way:

"Our troops are never coming back, or come stubbling home addicts. Either way their lives are over."

[punpirate]

2. The, ahem, president...

... given his background, might well be the last person one would ask about problems of drug addiction among the troops and expect to get a straight answer....

[Fovea]

5. But two years ago

in the SOTU address, he specifically mentioned drug abuse.
So surely our compassionate conservative, our Jesus confidante prez must have inside... er ... dope on the snow rangers and rangerettes of
Mosul, Tikrit, Falluja, and Kabul.

I think he needs to share his love with the parents of our troops.
Come on **, the truth shall set you free. It's not like we are asking you to turn the other cheek, or anything unmanly like that.

Because frankly, not listening to network happy talk, and following the international press, Iraq looks like the mother of all charlie foxtrots, and Afghanistan is back to its traditional role as home of snow.

Add this, and green zone newsgathering, and Gods only know what is going down in Iraq. But places like abu ghraib, and the inability to sequester even explosive devices both personal and anti personell suggest that military order is a very tenuous thing in these two theaters.

[jdj]

3. he'd just say "addiction...what's that"

or "oh, you mean like when you get caught doing drugs?"

[jdj]

4. dupe

[pocket]

6. This is a meme from hell

Bush is turning our troops into smack-heads.

[Fovea]

9. in every way, and every day

** makes this country a bit more like the USSR.

Yeah, I wish I could wear a Jeff Gannon mask, and shout this question at ** in a soi disant 'press conference.'

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Several Internet articles discuss the availability of drugs in Baghdad

It seems like drugs, prostitution, and pornography are now rampant throughout Baghdad. This is something our Greenzoned reporters never seem to discuss in the mainstream media. I'm not sure how free our troops are to go on leave in Baghdad and go get laid and stoned but the availability is apparently all around them.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/081803I.shtml

[pocket]

8. they aren't free at all

to go on leave in Baghdad. They stay sequestered inside their forts.

[Fovea]

10. I imagine Baghdad is

a KBR/Halli/CACI workers' paradise...

I suspect the drugs come in the same trucks as the bad food.

[gratuitous]

11. None of them -- what are you thinking about?

NONE of our troops ever, EVER touches illegal drugs or fraternizes with the opposite sex! How can you even think that? What sort of non-troop-supportin', commie-pinko-bastard, traitorous scumbag are you to think that our stars-spangled, freckle-faced (except for the coloreds, of course) men and women in uniform would ever have anything to do with drugs???

You know your kind just make me wanna puke, with your questions and everything! Just fall in line and quit thinking about things. If George By God Bush wanted you to think about something, it would be on Fox News! So just shut yer pie hole!