Hunter-gatherers more violent than farmers

LeBrok said:
Well if US and Nato was in control of Afghanistan there wouldn't be much fighting and dieing, right? And Taliban would be conquered and history.
The truth is that Taliban have greater support among the population than Western Countries, especially among peasants. Taliban became a power and ruler of Afghanistan, because of their agricultural "reform". Taliban took land from landlords and divided it between all villagers. The rest was done by terror and executions.
Now we have poor peasants growing poppy and benefiting directly. Life is good for villagers. Now Nato comes chases away Taliban and starts destroying the poppy fields.....WOW, if there was any support for West among villagers, then it was fast gone. That was the reason Taliban is back and have friends among peasants. It is hard to defeat enemy like this without the support of locals.
I'm sure that's the reason that Nato stopped destroying the poppy fields to rebuilt local support. Besides they are too busy looking for Taliban and road side bombs these days. On top of it you have corrupted Afghan government that most likely is in control of opium trade. West have to tiptoe around Karzai, as he is the leader of newly build and fragile "friend" in this region.

Now, are there some coffins coming with opium in them from Afghanistan? Probably yes. We know there were some coffins coming to US with narcotics during Vietnam War. But these were small enterprises run be some soldiers and officers illegally. There was never US government and CIA operation on industrial scale to benefit financially from drugs. And there is none now in Afghanistan. If there was CIA smuggling narcotics in past it was for tactical and not financial gains. Possibly to help Taliban to defeat Soviets couple of decades ago.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

According to experts that wrote wiki page about Afghanistan opium trade, most of it goes through Iran, Turkey and Russia, the historic and traditional routs.
There is no agreement how much Afghan opium is worth. Some experts put it at 64 billion, some at 15 or even 3 billion. Mind that Afghan GDP is 12 billion dollars. I think 64 billion then is quite a stretch, but even at 3 or 15 billion it is quite precious for farmers, landlords and Afghan politicians. But still peanuts for US to bother with.
With steep competition from Iran, Turkey and Russia, US would probably only grab 5 billion of the market. Again it doesn’t make much of financial sense to spend 100 billion a year in Afghanistan war to “steal” their opium, even if it was 50 billion worth of it.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

Here is an article to show you what goes with Iraq’s oil and who gets it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html
Looks like government of Iraq controls and sells it and whole world gets it. Seams far away from the notion that US have the exclusive rights even to buy it, not mentioning the stealing.
Click to expand...

i gave you lots of info and question about what i thought, and what i have from you, in my opinion, is not enough. i feel like this topic also strating to look like a boxing match of the two blind men. let us leave these infos to newcomers, they may judge or add some more.

thanks.
 
Here is what I personally think about it, without direct proof now [so I am willing to change my view]:

1. The US supports Afghan drug farmers. But not for financial reason, but to keep them on their side and prevent them from changing to the Taliban side. As already stated by LeBrok, the US is also too busy fighting than it could invest it's time in destroying poppy fields.

2. The US came to Afghanistan for economic reasons mainly. The war against terrorism was more of an excuse with 9/11 as a lucky incident for the US [and NO, 9/11 was NOT created by the CIA but a REAL terrorist attack!]

3. Initiator was the oil lobby, by which Bush and Cheney acted as a part of it, not as politicians in the interest of the US. If they had expected before that Iraq and Afghanistan war will be a loss for the US-economy, what I think it really is, and in how far they personally benefited from it, only speculation and not known.

4. If the wars have made the world a safer place now? In reference to the war in Iraq definately not! With the war in Afghanistan, probably a little, as it has prevented a spread of similiar Islamic regimes to it's neighbouring countries.
 
What are you talking about Barbarian? I gave you numbers to work with on Afghan drugs. Now you can calculate yourself if US benefits financially, or if it is worth dicking around for US at all. This makes sense. How else you can understand. I can prove my point on paper with numbers. What bigger proof can you get, without physically being in Afghanistan and seeing how money change hands?
If you want to convince me, work with numbers.
 
LeBrok said:
What are you talking about Barbarian? I gave you numbers to work with on Afghan drugs. Now you can calculate yourself if US benefits financially, or if it is worth dicking around for US at all. This makes sense. How else you can understand. I can prove my point on paper with numbers. What bigger proof can you get, without physically being in Afghanistan and seeing how money change hands?
If you want to convince me, work with numbers.
Click to expand...


Lebrok,

I meant that i ask you some questions like:
US’s 2009 military expenditure was about 650 billion which is almost equal to the total expenditure of the rest of the world (Afghanistan and Iraq not included). So, it is minimum 1 trillion dollars. I asked you “why does US spend this much Money? For global peace and democracy?”. i give you some numbers now. In these two countries there are app. 15 million manpower. If you give 500 $ salary each of them i am sure nobody will fight for taliban anymore. And it will cost about 90 billion a year, which is 10 times less than US's budget each year for peace and democracy. But, it is impossible and meaningless, because in this case, money will go from US to these countries not to global warlords, narcotic traffickers, banks.

You gave a link summarizing the money spent by US for global defence saying:

“US global defence budget for 2011 (?) is 1,121 $
……
Of this $1.121 trillion total, CRS estimates that Iraq will receive about $751 billion (67%), OEF (Afghanistan) $336 billion (30%) and enhanced base security about $29 billion (3%), with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1/2%). About 94% of the funds are for DOD, 5% for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and 1% for medical care for veterans.”

But if you read further you will see where the money goes to:
“
-military personnel funds to provide special pay for deployed personnel such as
hostile fire or separation pay and to cover the additional cost of activating
reservists, as well pay for expanding the Army and Marine Corps to reduce stress
on troops;
-Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funds to transport troops and their equipment
to Iraq and Afghanistan, conduct military operations, provide in-country support
at bases, and repairing war-worn equipment;
-Procurement funding to cover buying new weapons systems to replace war
losses, and upgrade equipment, pay modernization costs associated with
expanding and changing the structure of the size of the Army and Marine Corps,
- Research, Development, Test & Evaluation costs to develop more effective ways
to combat war threats such as roadside bombs;
-Working Capital Funds to cover expanding the size of inventories of spare parts
and fuel to provide wartime support; and
-Military construction primarily to construct”

Money is going to arms brokers. Or in other words, money goes from one pocket to another. It is very normal, US have a capitalist system, and in capitalist system companies rules the country. It is a kind of side effect.

About narcotics route and production you wrote:
“According to experts that wrote wiki page about Afghanistan opium trade, most of it goes through Iran, Turkey and Russia, the historic and traditional routes.”

If you mean that these are the traditional narcotics route. You are wrong 30 years ago people were unaware of drugs in Afghanistan. The production was almost zero. It is a capitalist systems innovation. And with the collapse of USSR, the new emerging markets like Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Ukraine, in addition to “surprising” rise of Somalia and Kurdistan made it very easy to transport the exported articles J.

Your another question is:
“Can you tell us how US government controls and benefits from heroin production in Afghanistan. How it could be organized to hidden it from journalists and population in general on big scale? How much could the heroin be worth for US acting as a middle man?”

i dont say US goverment or CIA do it by themselves. i say some “barons” do it and US goverment dont see them, destroy/eliminate their enemies or competitors etc. Because US know that this money will go to their banks, and these people are under US control. US want the power like all superpowers in the history. And power means money and control here.

You say:
“There is no agreement how much Afghan opium is worth. Some experts put it at 64 billion, some at 15 or even 3 billion. Mind that Afghan GDP is 12 billion dollars. I think 64 billion then is quite a stretch, but even at 3 or 15 billion it is quite precious for farmers, landlords and Afghan politicians. But still peanuts for US to bother with.”

it is only about opiums cost lebrok. The Afgan market is minimum 1 trillion/year in final market (and narcotics is the third biggest market in the world after oil and weapon) after refined. can you imagine if all this money would go to taliban?afghanistan would be full of skyscrapers, but i see most of the skyscrapers are in US J (some other countries businesmen” especially ,if they are on the trade routes, also benefits from this trade of course).

Again, you ask:
“Do you have at least a shred of information that Iraqui's oil is getting stolen, or is it just only your suspicion because it fits your hypothesis?”

dont think that i say they put the oil on the ships and bring them to US. It would look funny.
May be these hot news will explain what I am trying to say.
“Shell was one of the biggest players in iraq from the 1920s right up until nationalisation of the oil industry by Saddam Hussein in 1972.

The US administration has been running the country's oil industry since the invasion in 2003 but the iraq government is poised to pass new legislation designed to encourage international oil and gas companies to resume exploration and production in the country


Kurdistan remains one of the least-explored regions in the oilrich Middle East. Analysts estimate it has anything from 12bn to 45bn barrels of oil and up to 100 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The region is seen by most Western companies as one of the safest parts of iraq and probably the best way back into the war-torn country.

BG, BP, Exxon, Chevron and Total are said to be interested in taking stakes in the Iraqi industry.”

So, Arabians must share their profits with global companies, they must buy arms from big producers, they must invest their money in US. Otherwise, you will need democracy.

This is the funniest part you claim:

“I'm sure that's the reason that Nato stopped destroying the poppy fields to rebuilt local support. Besides they are too busy looking for Taliban and road side bombs these days. On top of it you have corrupted Afghan government that most likely is in control of opium trade. West have to tiptoe around Karzai, as he is the leader of newly build and fragile "friend" in this region.”

and mzungu says:
"If the wars have made the world a safer place now? ... With the war in Afghanistan, probably a little, as it has prevented a spread of similiar Islamic regimes to it's neighbouring countries."



So do you mean US allow %93 of the global heron production to take the local farmers support. Which one is more dangerous for your heaven: taliban, or heroin. how many young people is dying each year because of drug?

You must understand that the main financial sources of taliban are those opiums. if you want to stop taliban, then you must destroy those fields. but, who wants to destroy them.
 
barbarian said:
So do you mean US allow %93 of the global heron production to take the local farmers support. Which one is more dangerous for your heaven: taliban, or heroin. how many young people is dying each year because of drug?

You must understand that the main financial sources of taliban are those opiums. if you want to stop taliban, then you must destroy those fields. but, who wants to destroy them.
Click to expand...

Wew, that is a good question! What is worse, heroin or Taliban? :LOL:
Seriously, I don't think the US has any efficient concept on that. In a short sited manner they try to fight Taliban in first place, taking the risk of collateral damage of drug addicts, and taking the risk, too, of supporting Taliban, because of a lack of other alternatives. Besides fighting.
 
Oh, and another thing. How should they destroy those poppy fields? With an army of armed star-sprankled banner harvester-treshers? With clouds of poison herbicides? Or with bombs? I don't think the US will get more support of the farmers and the rest of the world with this tactic!
 
Mzungu mchagga said:
Oh, and another thing. How should they destroy those poppy fields? With an army of armed star-sprankled banner harvester-treshers? With clouds of poison herbicides? Or with bombs? I don't think the US will get more support of the farmers and the rest of the world with this tactic!
Click to expand...

come on Mzungu,
US claim to catch bin ladin, thousands of taliban terrorists and iraquis nuclear weapons, they catch saddam in very short period of time in village clothes. they made iraq a war field. thousands are dead and homeless. no country could say anything. do you think US care about what other countries believe? do you think they can catch the terrorist but cannot find the fields? US army spends billions of dollars for equipments. they can even produce star-sprankled banner harvester-treshers.
 
Of course they will find the fields and could destroy them if they wanted to. As I already said, the US doesn't regard it as that important, is busy with other issues, plus takes it as a collateral damage.
Otherwise it could declare war on Colombia and Morocco, too, and destroy their cocaine and cannabis fields. But is it of importance for the US?
 
Mzungu mchagga said:
Of course they will find the fields and could destroy them if they wanted to. As I already said, the US doesn't regard it as that important, is busy with other issues, plus takes it as a collateral damage.
Otherwise it could declare war on Colombia and Morocco, too, and destroy their cocaine and cannabis fields. But is it of importance for the US?
Click to expand...
US do not care about the source of %93 of the global heroin market (but care about democracy only(!)) and you still support them and believe they work for global peace and democracy?

come on mzungu, these narcos are sold at the corner of your streets. and kills your people. 1 millon people is dying each year because of drugs. and this market finances any kind of illegal formation including what US supposed to fight against.

here is the percentage of global narcotic taken up by the police of the countries
1)Iran - %23 (this devil- i hate iran also- caught %23 of the total catch by themselves)
2)Turkey %16
3) US %9 (come on superpower you are sitting on the source)
4)China %8

Europe (total) %10

source: (UNODC)
 
Barbarian, if I understand your point correctly, you would say that the opium trade has terrible results for countries in which most of it is distributed. In that case, I would agree with you strongly.
I don’t think that the developed world is ready to admit that strong measures will need to be taken with production, distribution, and use.
 
barbarian said:
US do not care about the source of %93 of the global heroin market (but care about democracy only(!)) and you still support them and believe they work for global peace and democracy?

come on mzungu, these narcos are sold at the corner of your streets. and kills your people. 1 millon people is dying each year because of drugs. and this market finances any kind of illegal formation including what US supposed to fight against.

here is the percentage of global narcotic taken up by the police of the countries
1)Iran - %23 (this devil- i hate iran also- caught %23 of the total catch by themselves)
2)Turkey %16
3) US %9 (come on superpower you are sitting on the source)
4)China %8

Europe (total) %10

source: (UNODC)
Click to expand...

I guess now we come to the point to debate about what moral aspects a superpower is in duty of. This is something which differs widely from culture to culture and produces a lot of misunderstandings and resentiments among the people in the world. For instance, if China was the absolute ruler of the world, it would rule it differently than Russia would, or the US, or even the EU [because you've mentioned the last one so often].
To some degree US politics and economy, despite of high immigration from catholic and non-western countries, are still based on old protestant doctrines, in which the freedom of a subject has to be guaranteed, but the range of what the individual does with this freedom, good or bad and perhaps even to it's own disadvantage, is left to it's own responsibility.
Many other cultures in this world, and especially non-western countries, would regard this kind of ruler as a sadist/cruel or cowardly ruler! And would prefer a benevolent, philanthropist but strict and mercyless autocrat instead, like it is often practiced in their own countries. This specially gives the feeling that someone loves and cares for you, even if it's combined with some law and order mentality.
Of course both ways of ruling are ideals which are hard to be reached in practice. But the aims are sometimes obvious and can be felt. This cultural misunderstanding is also the reason why I don't give much hope on success of the US in the Middle East, and btw, I never said that I supported US actions there! ;)

Just to explain you why the US and it's allies try put the defence of democracy above the fight against drugs!
 
Mzungu mchagga said:
Here is what I personally think about it, without direct proof now [so I am willing to change my view]:

1. The US supports Afghan drug farmers. But not for financial reason, but to keep them on their side and prevent them from changing to the Taliban side. As already stated by LeBrok, the US is also too busy fighting than it could invest it's time in destroying poppy fields.

2. The US came to Afghanistan for economic reasons mainly. The war against terrorism was more of an excuse with 9/11 as a lucky incident for the US [and NO, 9/11 was NOT created by the CIA but a REAL terrorist attack!]

3. Initiator was the oil lobby, by which Bush and Cheney acted as a part of it, not as politicians in the interest of the US. If they had expected before that Iraq and Afghanistan war will be a loss for the US-economy, what I think it really is, and in how far they personally benefited from it, only speculation and not known.

4. If the wars have made the world a safer place now? In reference to the war in Iraq definately not! With the war in Afghanistan, probably a little, as it has prevented a spread of similiar Islamic regimes to it's neighbouring countries.
Click to expand...

Addition to Point 1..

Drugs are a nice way to get money.
Don't forget that opium is needed for a modern army to produce morphine.

Drugs are necessary to keep up the soldiers moral.
You don't want all the wounded soldiers scream and feed fear to the rest of the platoon, do you?


Addition to point 2..

Nothing is investigated properly in the 911 attack.
Don't jump to conclusions.
It may have been an inside job.
We simply don't know.
Terrorist attack is very questionable!!!

Addition to point 4.

Yes.. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even had a huge offspring of violence. Bush created the terrorists, by simply stating they were there.
Lots of young poor Muslims took the bait.

Afghanistan was a peaceful nation in the 1970's, where Islam officials had little influence.
The country had a friendly relation with the USSR.
Study was free, human rights were guaranteed.

Then came the American idea to support some fundamentalist groups to oppose the pro Russian government.. And after a while all hell broke loose.

Soviet army rushed in to help the Afghanistan government, but was opposed by a fundamentalist opposition, supported by the USA.

Don't tell me, who are the real devils of this era!! I already know!
 
LeBrok said:
Bogdan, show us the money, show us the numbers proving that US benefited from Iraq, Afghanistan and even in WW2 financially. Without the numbers how do you know that US benefits or benefited in above stated situations?
Click to expand...

hmm well now thats not so easy.. youd have to look at all the corporations that manufacture weapons and look at their profits... but im not sure whether they even reveal these to the public...

As for WWII well in 1939 you had various trade agreements and pacts being signed... then look before WWII the US was ina terrible depression after WWII the US had the best economics of this century.... i wonder what caused this drastic change in jsut 5 years hmmm.... maybe the world war
 
Hi Bogdan, actually military production and government military spending is not a secret. Well, at least in all democratic countries.

Here is the USA military spending link. It’s not difficult to find official US government documents online. You just need to look for them.

http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2008/fy2008_summary_tables_whole.pdf

Also it’s not a secret who produces weapons. Here are the links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle

Here is the Annual report from Boeing. I’m sure you can find what weapons they produce and how much Boeing is making.

http://www.envisionreports.com/ba/2010/27525ja10e/index.html

You can also find people, and their pictures, who run Boeing, how much they make and how many shares they own. It’s all in the open, and financials of public companies are audited by independent accounting firms and government.

The raise of US after the war was more a matter of half developed world and Japane being devastated and lost a lot of GDP. US GDP grew during the war but mostly by military products. In 1944 and 1945 US spent 5 trillion dollars each year, in today’s money, only for war efforts. This most of it was destroyed during fighting or rusted equipment in fields after the war.

Ok, have to run now, New Year partyyyyyyyyy!!!!
Later
 
barbarian said:
Any country who doesnt want to be US’s mistress clearly needs democracy lessons from america, e.g. Iran, Syria, Iraq.
Click to expand...

Well add Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen to the list. People are so fed up with regimes that they are demanding democracy by themselves, not waiting for US to bring it there.

I've heard last week on a radio program that Iran is investing in and pumping Iraqi's oil.
A huge surprise even for me!!! I googled it and it seams to be a true story, on top of it there are other oil related investments of Iran in Iraq.
http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2010/10/29/iranian-company-to-build-oil-refinery-in-babil/

How is this possible, Barbarian, if US is controlling Iraq and it's oil, it allows an arch enemy Iran to "steal" it too???!!!
Can you explain it in context of US/CIA controlling the world, especially the Iraqis oil. The war was about oil right?
The only logical explanation is that US and Iran rule the world together. hmmm Imagine that.
 
Haha.. Propaganda tricks.
Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
 
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