pictures

Hello all,

I’ve sent out a lot of pictures today. A lot of them bounced back for one reason or another. Adam puts them on the blog spot so if you didn’t get them log onto the blog and check them out. His address is attached above if you need it. There is a lot I have to share with you all. But that will have to wait for another email. If you have questions please ask. Mrs. Shawver asked a great question about the poppy fields and what’s the deal with them. I’ll attach my response below:

Question:

The fields are beautiful but I do have a question. Are the fields being destroyed and if not why are they keeping them and you have to guard them??? Is the government using the fields for their own use?


Answer:

The way we are conducting business out here in conjunction with GIRoA (Government Islamic Republic of Afghanistan……I know huh?) is that we, the US, are not going to eradicate their poppy fields even though we know the poppy is grown for drug use. The problem is that the farmers are forced, more or less, to grow the poppy, cultivate it and sell it to the ‘buyers’ because the TB has told them too. Or if the local farmers are ‘share croppers’ they are told to grow/farm the poppy on the land by the land owners. I tell you it is a very entangled web out here. We don’t want to target farmers. They are not the issue and it’s really not their fault for growing poppy. And we are not guarding the poppy we just patrol through it. We want them to harvest the crop so when the buyers come we can interdict them. We know the farmers support their families with the profits they make. So it is counterproductive to bust the farmers. If we eradicate their fields it’s even worse because we look like jerks since we are destroying their way of life and not giving them a chance to do something to help us out. Like give up the buyers and grow other crops. It is tough……very difficult to go through all of this. So we put the pressure on the people telling them that they need to give up the buyers when they come. If not they will be charged for possession and then go to jail. The down side to all of this is that the buyers may not come. For a simple fact…..raw opium has a very long shelf life. It won’t spoil, rot, go bad, etc. This can actually help the TB for a few reasons. 1: The buyers might not show up to collect so the farmers will sit on the opium as credit (this is actually a very common thing that farmers do….it’s just like having a savings account) and the buyers stay at home waiting for us to leave. 2: The TB actually wants the US to eradicate the poppy fields…..they’ve even gone as far as telling farmers not to grow poppy next season. The price of opium is at a low right now. And to make prices go back up they just limit the supply. We have the same issue in our economy in the US. 3: The TB is sitting on an estimated 8000 pounds of raw opium right now. This is because in the past 3 years there has been more opium grown and harvested then users can smoke, eat or push with needles! I know crazy huh? So they’ll just sit on it and wait for demand to come back up, which raises the price. It’s a good situation for them. But what they don’t realize is that we are not leaving. And don’t be fooled by what the president said about a reduction in troops in the region. That is true….we will reduce the number of troops…..but we just had a surge in troops. I don’t want to say more that is needed to but if you take a battalion away that’s a reduction in troops. And with today’s military we don’t need as many troops because of the huge technological advantage we have. It’s amazing what we do with less. My platoon has 32 Marines in it and 4 of them are detached for a separate mission. A normal infantry platoon, which we are not….we are an LAR platoon, has 44 Marines in it! Almost double of what I could have right now!

The Afghan government is against growing poppy. It is actually against Islam to grow, cultivate, use or distribute drugs. But the TB and AQ are not good Muslims. And we use this in our campaign in the War on Terror.

Well I hope I shed some light on the situation. I totally understand how hard it is to get around all of this. And nothing I’ve disclosed to you is secret information. The media doesn’t share this because the whole truth doesn’t sell. There is a book called, ‘Seeds of Terror’ by Gretchen Peters. Very good book and very eye opening to what is going on here. It goes into details about all of the above. Even how the TB was created…and the Taliban was actually a good thing at first!

I’m doing well out here. It’s damn hot but we are doing good things.

So if you don’t know what we are doing out here it is important that you do know. The news isn’t going to tell you the whole story…..the whole story isn’t sexy and it doesn’t sell. One way or another you are supporting this war weather you like it or not. You pay taxes and that is your contribution…..so thank you for paying my ridiculous salary……lol. Funny, ha ha but not really. The manager at Burger King makes more than I do and he’s not getting shot at! Nor is he making history either.

Semper Fi,

ws