US soldiers importing Afghan drugs?

Wouldn't shock me. You can't stop people from being people. That being said, if people are doing it, they should go to jail for a long long time.

Chris Mills

I would be very surprised if this was not going on at some level. It certainly happened in Vietnam, and it went on as far back as Napoleon, at least. The profit potential is enormous. Hashish or opium bought for $20 or $50 there probably sells for several hundred here, at least.

Keep in mind that much of this is not "drug trafficking" in the usual sense of someone running a regular pipleline into the county. In many cases it is probably just a GI cashing in on what they were able to stash in personal belongings. It's not a trade without its risk. I understand they have to go through something like a military equivalent of customs, and the penalties can be quite severe. I would be much more concerned about the potential for weapons trafficking. Afghanistan is littered with automatic weapons which could also be had for a few dollars and resold at a huge premium to street gangs or hate groups.

In the case of opium or heroin, it cannot be said that soldiers are contributing to any real net increase in drug traffick. Virtually all of the world's heroin poppies come from the region and a very large share of that is destined for the US market, and would be whether or not we had troops stationed there.

I wouldn't be surprised. But it's not a difficult fix: all of our gear and equipment is inspected by Customs in country and usually again on the way out of Kuwait (they are very thorough with personal gear, so I imagine people are putting stuff in trucks and other equipment.) Mail is also inspected several times before it hits the U.S. system. It would only take some drug dogs to dissuade folks from trying it. Some will get through, of course, but I don't think this will be a big deal.

With the nation that they enlisted to protect with their very lives having exported the jobs they might have come back to fill or filled with alien labor, their might indeed be a rationalizable economic reason for their bringing back these drugs.

I don't condone it, but what they're doing is not incompletely incomprehensible to me.

(Not to thread high-jack but isn't it ironic that the leaders of the republic that sent them to war are now using them to subvert those values with the creation of the new America empire?)

Have not seen this mentioned on the milblogs I follow or in any of the Army War College writings. Not sure they would want to make it public TBH. It is possible, maybe even probable that it is becoming a problem. This is the longest deployment in our history of troops into constantly active combat. WWII was shorter and was more of a war of battles rather than everyday attacks. Maybe some are breaking down a bit.

Steve

I was under the impression that most heroin was refined outside of Afghanistan (in Central Asia, or Pakistan, or Iran), so that it would be difficult for US soldiers to have too much access to heroin.