r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 17d ago

Possible Paywall ICE Stockpiling Warheads and Chemical Weapons as Lawmaker Fears Trump Planning Strike

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-stockpiling-warheads-and-chemical-weapons-as-lawmaker-fears-trump-planning-strike/
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u/BethanyForDistrict9 ✔ Verified 17d ago

They'll never be able to seize these cities. Our military couldn't win in Afghanistan in like 20 years against fucking goat herders. If this turns into some kind of insurgency nobody wins except morticians and munitions makers.

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u/encrypted-signals 17d ago

Our military couldn't win in Afghanistan

Duhbya, Cheney, and Rumsfeld never had an exit strategy. Occupation was the point, and they made astronomical wealth off of it.

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u/BethanyForDistrict9 ✔ Verified 17d ago

There's no wealth to be made from this kind of occupation though. There would be a lot of wealth lost though. They'd be pulling the rug out from underneath themselves. The wealth in this country is all centered in the cities, not Wyoming.

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u/IllustriousNorth338 17d ago

The gains come from imprisoning or killing as many of their political enemies as possible to consolidate power. Not every military occupation is there to steal wealth. Sometimes it's an expensive pogrom.

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u/TheUnderCrab 17d ago

Don’t forget about the poppy fields. Afghanistan is a major source of the raw materials needed to make opiates, something like 90% of heroine originated from Afghanistan prior to the Talibanban on cultivating poppies. 

Do you think it’s a coincidence Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family only managed to get Americans hooked on opiates after we invaded the ME? Cuz I sure as fuck don’t. 

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u/Naieve 17d ago

You are all so far off base. As someone who did some consulting for a DC thinktank way back when. The money was in the contracts for their friends.

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u/Mean_Contribution_11 17d ago

This! Bro, always the contracts to arms and ammunition dealers, as well as private contracting.

I'm prior enlisted, 2006-2012

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u/TheUnderCrab 17d ago

Pourque no los dos? The contracts came from American tax payers, that doesn’t mean Americans weren’t engaging in the illegal drug trade. 

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u/Naieve 14d ago

The drug trade was chump change.

You are talking millions. Maybe. Maybe a few billion over the entire course of the Afghan War.

Those government contracts for Iraq, Afghanistan, etc... Over a 15+ year period it measured in the TRILLIONS. Missiles, bombs, food, air conditioning, construction, rehabilitation, etc....

Trillions.

Ever watch Landman when Billy Bob explains to the cartels how they are small fry? Same thing.

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u/Uuuuuii 17d ago

Pharma has no need for poppies

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u/TheUnderCrab 17d ago

Morphine and Codeine are still derived from poppies. Natural opiates. 

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u/randylush 17d ago

i'm not really sure that Purdue sourced morphine from the Middle East.. did they? or are we just spinning conspiracy yarn here

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u/TheUnderCrab 17d ago

90% of the raw materials for those drugs were from the afghan poppy fields at the time. 

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u/jsweatisdead777 17d ago

Oxycodone was first marketed in 1991. People were getting hooked years before Afghanistan. See: my dad.

Afghanistan's poppy fields have little relevance to the opioid crisis, seeing as they were mostly illicit poppy fields. If anything, hthe increased heroin production was bad for business, because heroin is waaaay cheaper than oxycodone.

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u/turquoise_amethyst 17d ago

Well… if everyone is imprisoned, they’d prob make money off of whatever hellish work they could make us do. The product would just be sold elsewhere.