Afghan poppy harvest is next challenge for U.S. Marines [View All]

[unhappycamper]

Afghan poppy harvest is next challenge for U.S. Marines
By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010

MARJAH, Afghanistan — U.S. Marine Sgt. Brad Vandehei stood on the edge of the small opium poppy field that serves as a central helicopter landing zone for the new military compound that's rising nearby.

"Those are poppies, sir?" Vandehei, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., asked Maj. David Fennell as they gazed at the spiked young plants that should be ready for harvest next month. "Let's burn it down, sir."

Fennell was scoping things out for another reason, however: That morning, the poppy farmer turned up with a dozen neighbors to complain about the Marines transforming his lucrative field into a rural helipad.

The swift American-led military offensive that drove the Taliban from power in this southern Afghan farm belt came at an inopportune time for the area's poppy farmers. That's created a quandary for Marjah's new, U.S.-backed leaders and for the American military as they try to transform this sweltering river valley, whose biggest cash crop is opium poppy, into a tranquil breadbasket.

"The helicopters are landing in my field," the weathered farmer told Fennell as they sat in the dirt outside the Marines' newest forward operating base in Marjah. "You have to stop landing there. Next time, the Taliban will put an IED in the field," an improvised explosive device, the military's term for a homemade bomb.


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/16/90477/afghan-poppy-harvest-is-next-challenge.html



unhappycamper comment: At least now we can say that the United States Marine Corps is aware there are poppies in Afghanistan.