As U.S. fights, Afghan opium poppy harvest hits record (Grumpy Editor)

Despite 13 years of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, opium poppy cultivation continues to thrive, reaching a record this year, notes Grumpy Editor.

Not making headlines, a United Nations report last week indicates the opium harvest this year jumped 17 percent from last year to about 6,400 tons.

One U.N. official calculates the drug trade accounts for 20 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product while the industry indirectly employs more than 400,000 people. That’s equal to the population of Minneapolis.

So much for the U.S. influence there, after spending $7.6 billion in Americans' taxpayer money over the past dozen years in efforts to eradicate poppy fields.

Few remember that before U.S. troops entered Afghanistan in 2001, Russians (known as Soviet forces at that time) were involved in an Afghanistan War between 1978 and 1992 with a military that peaked at 100,000.

U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq wars is costing American taxpayers between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, which includes wounded veterans’ medical care and other factors, based on a study last year by Linda J. Bilmes, a Harvard University public policy professor.

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