Marie Claude: Taliban; Al Qaeda et al were concerned that an oversupply of opiates would depress the price of opium-based drugs. So they paid top dollar for a bumper crop one year and secreted the supply in certain safe havens.

Then they leaked the supply a little at a time to the usaual suspects. While they were doing that, they ordered the farmers not to produce any more opium. Once the cache was exhausted the terrorists once again ordered a maximum crop.

All of which has been SOP for quite some time both in Afghanistan and in VN.

And of course in both places those whom the media said were really responsible were those that were on our side. Our enemies were really clean and trying to get people away from drugs etc etc etc.

And as I have said repeatedly here on BC and elsewhere: Solution is to buy the opium and convert it to petroleum. Yield is almost three barrels per acre. I understand that to be using only the opium buds and without microbe enhancement, which enables use of the entire plant for conversion.

The necessary polydethermalization units are known and Seabees and Engineers know how to make copies explicitly designed with primitive conditions in mind. Secret to success will be making the units run on electrical power generated without using petroleum itself. Not difficult.

Once the program is up and running, see if a variety of rapeseed can be made to grow on that terrain as it is the one crop whose oil yield is superior to opium. If so, farmers will be happy to grow it instead.

Sell the resultant fuel to the locals with the cash proceeds going to other agricultural/animal husbandry projects in the area.

Oh me, oh my. When will the powers that be manage to extract their fifth point of contact from their third point of contact.