cedarford: What would you think of rifle bullets made from curtain rods? How about sending laundry to Hawaii and back on sailing ships? Or taxicabs that run on charcoal?

Would you consider a spaceship that flies on laughing gas and old tires?

All these and others are part of what human beings have accomplished in order to solve vexing problems under trying conditions.

Any organic substance can be converted to crude oil. The quantities obtained vary by
composition of the input. I fail to see where the complete opium poppy plant would be inadequate for the purposes described.

A W. W. Grainger 35kw PTO generator can be powered by manual labor. 35 KW should be adequate for manufacturing 50 to 75 barrels
of West Texas Intermediate per day (average).
Some standard 500 watt farm and ranch wind generators can keep a bank of Sears diehards charged. In turn, the latter can provide all the auxillary power needed plus provide
juice for momentary power surges. So forth and so on. The petroleum proposal will meet with varying degrees of success PROVIDED it does not consume more oil than produced.

In addition to which, the very act of setting up the facilities will provide an antidote to
Taliban/AlQaeda instigation. The indig in those areas are basically raiding societies.
Religous fundamentalism can easily escalate the desire to raid into fanatical homicide.
Uncle Stupid has taken it upon himself to suppress one of the few productive enterprises going thereby punishing people for doing things like they ought to and helping our enemies reward the same people for inherently unethical and inimical behavior.

And in constructing the facilities, local hire labor can too be employed. Perhaps
a portion of their pay could be in the form of wind-up radios with LED-equipped table lamps attached. Anybody is going to prefer
that form of illumination to what they currently have. And if the radios happen to pull in Radio American Imperialism, the locals will get exposed to folkways highly toxic to our enemies.

Afghanistan was initially a rousing success because the Special Forces had enough sense to take the countryside and leave the urban alone. The occupation IMMEDIATELY set about
eliminating any and all traces of such an astute approach. I do believe that I am sufficiently deranged to sabotage anything Foggy Bottom can come up with.