Our foreign policy is retarded, part MMMMCXXV5billion

[Kuciwalker]

I am forced to agree with Ramo in this particular instance (though not in general).

[Patroklos]

Jeebus, this isn't a difficult concept. In his scenario, poppies are treated as a defacto legal (the specific term to describe its status doesn't matter, but that's what we're talking about) crop in areas loyal to Karzai. You can't justify dumping herbicides on disloyal areas by saying that opium is inherently beyond the pale, because of the aforementioned de-facto legalization. What he's talking about is punishing civvies for percieved political views.

Nothing is ever made legal Ramo, at best what he is talking about is a targeted amnesty. Using "loyalty" to decide who gets to take advantage of that amnesty is suspect in my opinion, but whatever.

The only why you could possibly twist this into legalizing the growing of poppies is if the government bought the crop yearly. That is very clearly not what PLATO suggested. He said a one time buy out, and then help them to grow something else. If they grow poppies again there is nothing PLATO said that suggests they would not be subject to the same measures/laws they are right now.

Basically he is suggesting giving the farmers a way out without inflicting the loss of an entire harvest's worth of income on them.

[Ramo]

Like I keep saying, the specific term to describe what he's talking about doesn't matter wrt to my argument (BTW, I wouldn't use "amnesty" either - people getting an amnesty usually don't get cash from the gov't in the relevant deal). I'll copy and paste because the argument is exactly the same:

Jeebus, this isn't a difficult concept. In his scenario, poppies are treated as a [your favorite term that indicates some kind of temporary legality] crop in areas loyal to Karzai. You can't justify dumping herbicides on disloyal areas by saying that opium is inherently beyond the pale, because of the aforementioned [your favorite term]ization. What he's talking about is punishing civvies for percieved political views.