Obama makes surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign security agreement

[Cebu_4_2]

Maybe he will stand in front of his poppie fields?





Obama makes surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign security agreement

2:22 PM, May. 1, 2012

(http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/comments/article/20120501/GPG0101/120501086/Obama-makes-surprise-visit-Afghanistan-sign-security-agreement)


Written by

Ben Feller

The Associated Press





KABUL, Afghanistan — Under intense security and the cover of night, President Barack Obama slipped into Afghanistan on Tuesday to sign an agreement cementing a U.S. commitment to the nation after the long and unpopular war comes to an end.
Obama was to be on the ground for about seven hours in Afghanistan, where the United States has been engaged in war for more than a decade following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The trip carries major symbolic significance for a president seeking a second term and allows him to showcase what the White House considers the fruit of Obama’s refocused war effort: the killing a year ago of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Air Force One touched down late at night local time at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base here.
Media traveling with Obama on the 13-hour flight had to agree to keep it secret until Obama had safely finished a helicopter flight to the nation’s capital, Kabul, where Taliban insurgents still launch lethal attacks.
Obama is joining Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign the agreement that will broadly govern the U.S. role in Afghanistan after the American combat mission stops at the end of 2014 — 13 years after it began.
Obama will also give a speech primarily aimed at an American audience at 6:30 p.m. CDT. It will be 4 a.m. in Afghanistan when Obama speaks.
His war address will come exactly one year after special forces, on his order, began the raid that led to the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.
Since then, ties between the United States and Afghanistan have been tested anew by the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. base and the massacre of 17 civilians, including children, allegedly by an American soldier.
Obama’s overarching message will be that the war is ending on his watch but the U.S. commitment to its ally is not.
Politics, too, set the tone for what the White House hoped would be a positive message and image for Obama: the commander in chief setting a framework to end the war while reassuring Afghanistan, on its soil, it will not be abandoned.



http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120501/GPG0101/120501086/Obama-makes-surprise-visit-Afghanistan-sign-security-agreement

[Cebu_4_2]

There is more at the above link

JUST IN: In an unannounced trip, US President Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan to sign an agreement cementing the US role in the country after the war ends in 2014 - AP (https://www.facebook.com/APNews)

[ximmy]

Obmama’s First Order: Don’t Hurt the Heroin

Obama makes surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign security agreement


Hey, guys, don’t pick the poppies.
That’s the order from the Obama Administration to the 4,000 Marines presently engaged in Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Taliban infested Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs. The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.
The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies - the crop used to make heroin.
Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Heroin, as it turns out, represents the only staple of the Afghan economy. The country manufactures no domestic products for exportation and the rocky terrain yields no cash crops - - except, of course, the poppies.
The poppies fuel the great jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 billion.
Destroying the fields could very well put an end to terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But the Obama Administration remains intent upon protecting the poppies so that the Afghan farmers and local drug lords can reap the benefits of what purports to be a bumper crop.
Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.


http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12707

[sirgonzo420]

Obmama’s First Order: Don’t Hurt the Heroin

Obama makes surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign security agreement


Hey, guys, don’t pick the poppies.
That’s the order from the Obama Administration to the 4,000 Marines presently engaged in Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Taliban infested Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs. The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.
The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies - the crop used to make heroin.
Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Heroin, as it turns out, represents the only staple of the Afghan economy. The country manufactures no domestic products for exportation and the rocky terrain yields no cash crops - - except, of course, the poppies.
The poppies fuel the great jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 billion.
Destroying the fields could very well put an end to terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But the Obama Administration remains intent upon protecting the poppies so that the Afghan farmers and local drug lords can reap the benefits of what purports to be a bumper crop.
Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.


http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12707


lol.

I don't doubt that they are scratching their heads... as a matter of fact, opiate use can cause one to scratch. I wonder how many guys who've served over there come back here and develop major pill addictions.