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| Afghanistan |
| U.S. Says Three Years Needed To Train Afghan Army |
| 2006-07-20 |
 July 14, 2006 -- A U.S. general training Afghanistan's army says the task will take at least three more years. General Robert Durbin said about 30,000 soldiers are fully trained and equipped and that the force is growing by about 1,000 a month.Speaking in Washington on July 13, Durbin did not challenge an Afghan assertion that the planned 70,000-man force may be less than half what's needed. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 Sounds like someone has already been sampling the products. |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2006-07-20 21:24 |
| #6 If it were made legal we could release about 60% of the United States' prison population. We could save ourselves literally billions of dollars by firing thousands upon thousands of suddenly unnecessary police and bureaucrats... especially bureaucrats. We could free up enormous sums of money to fight the War on Terror. We could reduce taxes. Our police could focus on arresting actual criminals like murderers, child molesters, rapists, and burglars. Just saying. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2006-07-20 17:21 |
| #5 If it were made legal, Afghanistan would not be the low cost producer. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-20 13:38 |
| #4 Iblis: there was a suggestion to both legalize and buy all of the opium produced. While opiates are superb painkillers, there has long been a worldwide shortage of them for legitimate medical use, requiring expensive alternatives. Having a regular supply of low-cost anesthetic for the third and fourth world would save their medical systems many billions of dollars every year, and ease a lot of needless suffering. Of course, the US pharma industry would not be happy at all with such a decision. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-07-20 13:31 |
| #3 Legalize poppy production in Afghanistan. That will take all the profit out of it for the drug gangs, who in turn are funding the Taliban. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2006-07-20 12:34 |
| #2 Afghanistan is one of the most crippled nations on Earth, and I cannot imagine it being restored to security or economic sustainment in less than two generations. The best thing that could happen to them would be to have a status of forces agreement with the US to garrison a Corps of US military, accompanied with a "Marshall plan" to reconstruct the country. But unless the next US president is a total believer in doing something like this, Afghanistan will be a hundred years in recovery. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-07-20 10:17 |
| #1 Get out of there & quit wasting time and money. Apply Agent Orange to all poppies. Any further military strikes should be in Pakland. Nothing under 100 megatons. |
| Posted by: SOP35/Rat 2006-07-20 01:40 |