Afghans to cut food imports in battle on opium

[NNN0LHI]

This sounds like an idea Bush came up with while in a drunken stupor.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL35205.htm

KABUL, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Afghanistan will stop importing some food and grain to boost struggling farmers and reduce their reliance on illicit poppy cultivation, a major source of funds for al Qaeda and the Taliban, a minister said on Tuesday.

Agriculture Minister Sayed Hussein Anwari said the Afghan interim government had failed to curb the production of opium, the raw material for heroin, as the country heads for a bumper crop despite the harvest being declared illegal.

Afghanistan's opium production is expected to rise six percent this year to 3,600 tonnes, according to U.N. estimates.

"Unfortunately the government was not able to take the necessary measures to prevent the business or the growing and cultivation of poppies," said Anwari, holding a joint news briefing with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman in Kabul.

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[Malva Zebrina]

1. do you think it is a major source of funds for Al Queda and the Taliban?

There were no opium farms under the Taliban, which makes me wonder why, if they are as religiously fundamentalist as they claim, they would take this money. As soon as Afganistan was bombed to rubble, and puppet Karzai installed, the ban was lifted off the opium farmers and they gleefully went back to their crops. I don't think hat is the work of the Taliban .