The Trump administration’s record numbers of airstrikes in Afghanistan have failed to expand the Afghan government’s control over its population and stop the Taliban from quickly replacing its opium and heroin processing labs pulverized by the U.S. military, a watchdog agency said in a report to Congress released Tuesday.
In its latest quarterly audit to lawmakers, the U.S. Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) noted:
The expanded authorities provided [by President Trump] to U.S. forces in Afghanistan have resulted in a significant uptick in U.S. air strikes and special operations against the insurgency, with the U.S. dropping 653 munitions in October 2017, a record high since 2012 and a more than three-fold increase from October 2016.
These actions have yet to increase the Afghan government’s control over its population … The goal of the Afghan government is to control 80% of its population within the next two years.
While the U.S. military is targeting the Taliban’s opium business, dealing a blow worth millions of dollars to the group, it is barely making a dent on the illicit trafficking of the lucrative poppy plant, noted SIGAR, explaining:
U.S. and Afghan air strikes this quarter have targeted the Taliban’s opium-production industry, which the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates has as many as 400–500 active facilities at any given time.
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The worldwide heroin epidemic won't be curtailed until there are no customers, which will be.....
ReplyDeleteThey have to keep Shipping to Congress !!!
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe the article.
ReplyDeleteYou can if you wish, that is your right.
The Taliban was BURNING POPPIES because they are religious. It was the CIA and Russian Mafia who wanted the heroin. The war was for control of the poppies. Just like the 1980s when the CIA (Tim Osmond) fought the Russians to prevent losing the poppies.
Wake up folks.
The US government is lying about everything
Clinton Foundation has some coming on Back order !!
ReplyDeleteYour dam right 1:12. The taliban were killing the herion trade by stopping it!!funny how since we liberated afgans the herion epidemic here if much much worse. Does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out. It is the swamp rats that deceive and lie to us.
ReplyDelete