The Seeds Of Stupidity

Here is a link to the Ravi Khanna piece mentioned in the video. Here is what Gretchen Peters has to say:

She says the U.S. must disrupt the Taliban's heroin money trail.

"While the insurgents earn some money from collecting taxes from the farmers, the bulk of the earnings come from protecting the trade, protecting the convoys and protecting the refineries and taxing the refineries and yet we are not going after that element of it," Peters said. "Even the US military resisted that until very recently."

Yeah. All that has been tried in the USA for over 90 years. None of it has worked. Why? There are estimates out there that for every 1% increase in the interdiction budget drug profits rise 3%. So how much would we have to spend to drive the criminals and terrorists out of the narcotics business? NOTHING. Well obviously we can't afford it.

And you can get more of Ms Peters at YouTube and Pajamas TV.

And if that is not enough she has written a book: Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda.

In the Pajama's TV video Ms Peters suggests that going after the Taliban labs, convoys, and money shuffling network can stop the Taliban from profiting from the opium trade. However, she fails to notice that those very same types of efforts have been going on in the USA for some 90+ years with no noticeable effect on the trade. Why something that has not worked in the friendly USA will work in unfriendly Afghanistan goes unexplained. When the Boston Globe comes out in favor of a policy Boston Globe - End Heroin Prohibition for defeating the Taliban as I do it just may be possible I'm on to something.

Other articles discussing this:
Defeating The War On Terror
From Drug War To Real War
The War Lords of Afghanistan
Shoot the Europeans First
The Source of the Problem is not in Afghanistan
Supply side economics

Now if a guy like me can figure it out, and even the Boston Globe gets it, what exactly is wrong with Ms Peters? And especially what is wrong with the Obama administration? I mean besides every thing else.

Cross Posted at Classical Values