Amid Opioid Crisis at Home, U.S. Blows $50 Million on Leery Afghan Drug Treatment Programs

[pipedreams]

And we wonder why the country is broke.

"In the midst of an opioid epidemic in the United States, the government has blown tens of millions of dollars to treat drug addiction in Afghanistan and has no clue if the programs are working. Since 2002 American taxpayers have doled out an eye-popping $9 billion to counter drug production in the Islamic nation, the world’s top opium producer. The money largely flows through the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). As part of the broader effort, Uncle Sam spent $50.5 million on dozens of drug treatment programs between 2013 and 2018. The treatment projects are implemented by the United Nations on Drugs and a cooperative for economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific known as Colombo Plan."

https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/amid-opioid-crisis-at-home-u-s-blows-50-million-on-leery-afghan-drug-treatment-programs/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tipsheet&utm_term=members&utm_content=20190729183946

[Moshe]

The crisis is the de-regulation by states on pot, while making pain medication more restrictive for chronic pain sufferers.  They are making it such a PITA that they are pushing people to find not-so-legal alternatives that create a false narrative.  It is about liberals wanting NORML, and they don't care how smashed up your body is, if they can't toke, well, screw everyone.  Liberals are very stupid, and very see-through.  Now, Afghanistan grows the flower, that they score to maker heroin and be a major supplier to the world market.  The Afghanis themselves could care less about the plant they grow, rather what they can make by exportation.  I believe the initiative is to cut the Afghanistan supply.  Trump doesn't want to be the guy that heats up a war over there.  He has enough of a headache on what to do with Iran, an keeping the Goliath Protocol going off.  If he wouldn't be railed by the media, he would send in BORTAC and the SEALs to kill off the supply as they usually do.  But, one capture, one fatality, and it would be all over the news, and screw his chance for re-election, as the Liberal narrative would be, "Trump Ignites New War in Afghanistan."  Instead, he is paying, sadly, with tax money, to pay the Afghani drug dealers enough not to deal.  Had this been a Latin American deal, both groups would be sent down there to break things and kill people as they are trained and utilized to do.  No one is going sweat Colombia being mad at us.  They will just send out a State Department warning for travel.  When a Columbian needs to be removed to Bogota by a lowly Deportation Officer, Department of State Security will pick up the Officer and detainee, deposit the Colombian BG to the local authorities and deposit the D.O. in a secured hotel, and told to remain in place until DSS can pick them up and escort them to the plane that will return the D.O. to the United States.

This is why Trump is doing what he is doing, probably because someone gave him some intelligent pre-election advice,  Right now, instead of firing and hiring out of irritation, he has developed enough political acumen with trial by fire, that he knows how to play both sides of this card.  He is starting to learn that bobble head advisors are useless and dangerous to his political future, and is getting ready for, what he hopes, and I hope, given the alternatives, a re=election.  I think we will see the real face of Trump on his second election, knowing that he can only have two terms in office.  Politics, whether you claim to be an insider, or an outsider, is a chess game.  He has had to learn from hard knocks, that he didn't understand how the political system worked from day one when he told Senator McConnel what he was going to do.  McConnel fired back, Mr. President, you can't order the Senate to do anything.  So, I suspect you will see less of hardliner, though he will be that way from the stump, than we will see on a second term.

What Trump needs is the Reagan philosophy, surround himself with people with the know how to get things done.  For instance, instead of fighting with Pelosi and crew about a wall, all he needed was an advisory that was smart enough to advise him how to get what he wants in a manner that no one could stop him.  For instance, if I was his DHS Advisor, and this wall thing was eating him up, and the idea of armed troops on the Border, it would be a really easy solution.  The Navy and the Marine Corps are the only military branches that do not fall under posse comitatus.  He and the political appointee who really doesn't know what she was doing argued with him that because of that law he could not send armed members of the Army of the Border.  A smart DHS advisor would tell him, "Mr. President we can achieve your goals legally, including your wall without interference and energize your base.  Send down the Marine Corps for your forces at the Border.  Send down the unarmed Army Corps of engineers to be protected by both the Corps and the USBP, and have them build your wall.  You are both the Executive and the Commander-in-Chief, so you can allocate your resources how you see fit.  If there is a small imminent domain problem, it is overcome by imminent domain for emergency circumstances."  So, he gets armed troops, his wall, and there isn't anything Pelosi could do but stop her foot in anger.  The end.