Letter to the editor:

Future rebels being born today

Wed, Sep 19, 2018 (2 a.m.)

Congress has determined that the best way to bring peace and stability to the graveyard of empires, after 17 years of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, is to repeat Russia’s warning to the Taliban that they cannot win on their own battlefields.

Afghanistan is an impoverished country with a population of 34 million that is growing at a rate of 850,000 each year. Its families and children have little access to training or income, but the opium trade can supply both.

In 2017, the export value of the Afghans’ illicit opiates ranged between $1 billion and $3 billion, and provided 400,000 jobs to needy Afghan families.

Even more astonishing, Congress has withdrawn funding for contraceptives. In 13 years, thousands of unwanted children, born into stark poverty, will be more than willing to carry rifles as child soldiers in order to eat, and the opium trade will be there to feed and train them.

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