Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State

Re:Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State by ghshephard on Saturday December 06, 2014 @10:52PM (#8711173)

I have a better idea - Pay them $3 billion dollars to grow crops that ensure food security, and let them sell it for whatever they can get. Or, while we're spitballing - how about pay them $3 Billion to go to school, build roads, irrigation systems, etc...

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Re:Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State by maxmcd on Saturday December 06, 2014 @11:00PM (#8711194)

What's the difference? The only difference between a $3bil drug purchase and a $3bil crop/infrastructure stimulus is that one assumes you can control spending.

Why wouldn't heavily funded drug dealers reinvest in their community? Or, how would crop/infrastructure funding not directly support the drug industry?

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Re:Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State by ghshephard on Sunday December 07, 2014 @04:33AM (#8711747)

The difference would be, that in addition to getting $3bil, they would also have peripheral local benefits - Food Security from the plentiful crops.

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Re:Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State by azernik on Sunday December 07, 2014 @02:02AM (#8711523)

Crop funding is favored by policy wonks because it competes for the same inputs that drug production requires (namely, agricultural land and labor).

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