Hell, This Has To Be One Of The Worst Op-Eds Ever Written

This one by Colonel David Hunt, via FoxNews.com, I mean... In case you plan on reading the entire article, take an aspirin and a few quick shots of whiskey first.

For the sake of discussion, I'll breeze quickly past the poor writing style - such as calling President Karzai a "cute little guy who wears a cape and a hat" and starting 10% of his sentences with "Hell,..."

The first three paragraphs are reasonably accurate, minus the oddly placed immigration reference at the end (and maybe the claim that the US has "owned Afghanistan for five years"). In fact, the article starts much like most pro-drug war articles start: with facts that support ending the drug war.

And then, the paragraph:

The United States of America is sadly the largest user of raw opium — you may
know it as heroin. My friends, you cannot make this up … you see, truth is stranger and always more shocking than fiction. What else is stranger than fiction is how easy it would be to destroy the stuff. These fields are miles and miles long and wide. We should bomb them, blow them up, set up an artillery and motor training range and blow the opium off the planet. It is true that it’s the only product Afghanistan farmers export. Between us and Europe, we surely can come up with another product that this poor country can export. We can also pay them for their opium that we will destroy for a few years, and, of course, while we are getting them to use another product that does not kill people. [How about marijuana, then??]

All emphasis and bracketed comments mine.

Wow... WOW... In this one paragraph, Hunt advocates not only spraying but bombing opium fields. He claims that the US and Europe should be able to dictate what crops poor Afghan farmers can grow. And finally, he advocates extending the oh-so-successful "pay to not produce shit" farm subsidies to a foreign country.

I could quote some more from the final paragraphs of the article, but there's really no need. It doesn't make any fucking sense. To summarize, Hunt goes on to scold you for not caring enough about bin Laden's most recent video and then the grand finale (ok, I just have to give in and quote one more time):

...with the sheer amount of opium present, the massive size of the problem will get your attention and maybe, just maybe, you might put down the beer, or even better, take the half full one and throw it at the TV and then write your congressman, senator or even the president and say, “Enough is enough, this is the greatest damn country in the world, how about we act like it?

My head hurts.