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Marine Surge Won’t Target Afghan Opium Crops: General

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 16, 2009 Global, News

Photo: pavric

An opium poppy field in Afghanistan. Slit marks on the bulbs are where raw opium has been harvested.

Thousands of additional Marines flooding into Afghanistan’s opium-growing interior won’t go after those growing the crops, the commander in the area said, according to Reuters.

“The reality we have to face right now is that the number one cash crop in this area is still the poppy,” said Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, who commands 10,000 Marines in opium center Helmand.

Nicholson said he didn’t want to “alienate” local farmers by targeting their opium poppies.

Top Drug Cop Killed In Honduras

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 9, 2009 Global, News

Photo: Zack Clark

Honduran police face a tough fight with drug traffickers, despite plenty of Yankee dollars.

The top anti-drug cop in Honduras was killed by unidentified gunmen on Tuesday, a national police spokesman told CNN, Mariano Castillo reports.

Gen. Julian Gonzalez, director of the Office for Combatting Drug Trafficking, was shot in his SUV by two people on a motorcycle, according to police spokesman Orlin Cerrato.

No arrests have been made, and the investigation remains active, Cerrato said.

U.S. Anti-Drug Aid Slow To Arrive In Mexico

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 4, 2009 Global, Legislation, News

DEA

“Drug money” and cartel weapons seized by the Mexican Federales and the DEA

Promised security help from the United States for Mexico’s drug war, including helicopters and scanners for contraband detection, has been held up by bureaucratic red tape and is slow in arriving, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Ken Ellingwood reports in the Los Angeles Times.

The GAO examination said that just $26 million, or 2 percent of the nearly $1.3 billion appropriated for security aid, had been spent by the end of September.

The multi-year Merida Initiative is intended to help Mexican officials, who are locked in a bloody three-year offensive against illegal drug cartels. The Mexicans have complained that the promised American help has been too slow to reach them.

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