CIA's Afghan Poppy Plan: Weaken Opium, Boost What?
Between 2004 and 2015, the CIA allegedly deployed modified poppy seeds to degrade opium potency in Afghanistan. While the official line hints at disrupting drug trade, one might recall the CIA's historical entanglement with narcotics, from funding Contra rebels via drug money to the infamous Golden Triangle operations . The US invasion itself, while ostensibly targeting terrorism, conveniently
allowed the country's opium production to skyrocket to record levels, enriching various actors in the chaos. So, after two decades of US presence, funding warlords, and leaving behind a nation teetering on collapse, the CIA's grand solution was, what, a botanist's version of a slap on the wrist? It appears that 'winning hearts and minds' sometimes involves a bizarre agricultural experiment, while
the actual human cost of two decades of war gets neatly filed under 'collateral damage' and quietly forgotten.