Submitted by Scott Baker, Jan 17, 2007 11:02

Yes! This is exactly what I've been advocating to my friends and anyone else who would listen for years. Now I have Ms. Applebaum's excellent article to bolster my arguments. The only thing I wish she had mentioned is that, according to the CIA world fact website, Afghanistan's total GDP in 2004 (the latest year GDP figures are available), was about 27 billion dollars. I'm pretty sure we are still spending more than that on the Afghanistan war. Even if we bought the entire poppy crop and could only resell it to our pharmaceutical companies at a fraction of the cost, we would still save billions. Plus, we would stop making an enemy of the Afghan farmer, who only takes up a plowshare, not a gun, against us. Karzhi will soon leave the scene and the next administrator won't be so pro-western. We have a very small window to get this right, and Bush, again, is blowing it with his ham-handed ideological and impractical policies. History will record he lost two wars, not one, or maybe three if he takes on Iran next.

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