I'm sorry, it's probably wrong of me to say this but this has got to be the funniest news story I have ever seen:

Marijuana fighters fox Canadians
Taleban fighters using giant Afghan marijuana forests for cover are proving a tough foe to smoke out, the head of Canada's armed forces has revealed.
Thickets three metres (10ft) high readily absorb heat, making them hard to penetrate with thermal devices, said Gen Rick Hillier in a speech in Ottawa.

"You really have to be careful the Taleban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he added.

Burning them is not an option as they are laden with water, the general said.

He was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency that the crew of at least one armoured car had responded by camouflaging their vehicle with marijuana.

Canada's armed forces have more than 2,300 personnel deployed in Afghanistan as part of the Isaf international force and have suffered at least 40 fatalities since 2002.

Smoke scare

"We tried burning [the marijuana forests] with white phosphorous - it didn't work," said Gen Hillier.

"We tried burning them with diesel - it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now... that we simply couldn't burn them."

He noted that a couple of brown plants on the edges of some of the forests had caught fire but this had posed yet another problem.

"A section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," he said, speaking dryly, according to Reuters.

One soldier had told him:

"Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

Marijuana, an illegal drug in most parts of the world, grows wild across Central Asia, where it is commonly regarded as a weed.

With illicit marijuana production on the rise in Canada itself, police there recently identified fighting the drug as their "biggest issue".

Your comments

In 2003 working for the UN in the South-East we encountered two types of marijuana plant production. The first was grown for 'export' as part of the drug trade and is a smaller plant with long head which contains a concentration of THC - the active substance in marijuana. The second and most common was the marijuana forest which is grown for its hemp and for feeding cattle. From the photos and description I believe it is this latter type that the troops encountered. Burning or otherwise destroying it would require some fore-thought as it probably is part of some poor farmer's livelihood.
Daniel Pugh, Edmonton, Canada

Have you encountered Afghanistan's marijuana forests as a soldier or in another capacity? Send us your accounts and photos using the form below.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6052270.stm

Published: 2006/10/15 05:12:14 GMT

© BBC MMVI

My latest letter to the editor:

Is it time to return the legal drinking age to eighteen? The answer is yes. Consider:

At the age of eighteen a person can vote, serve on a jury, make legally binding agreements, buy firearms, marry, adopt, be tried as an adult and sentenced to death in some states, life in adult prison in all states, and must register for the selective service in order that he may be among the first in line to be called to serve in the armed forces should military conscription again become a reality.

At the age of eighteen a person may not: drink alcohol. That's it.

Why the double standard? The current laws were written in response to an example of coercive federalism on the part of the Reagan administration, the same administration that brought us the "just say no" campaign and the wonderfully successful "war on drugs". Any state not raising its legal drinking age to twenty-one would be cut off from millions of dollars of federal highway funds. Who could say no? Well the Reagan administration is over and so too should be this hypocritical, discriminatory prohibition. Perhaps a case could be made for leaving the drinking age where it is if its primary objective (keeping 18, 19 and 20 year olds from drinking) was being accomplished but we know that that is not at all the case. A WSJ story of Sept. 29 referred to the frustration being experienced by local law enforcement and mentioned that alcohol related trips to hospital emergency rooms and to detoxification centers among members of this age group are as high as or higher than ever.

Also, consider this question: does anything magical happen when a person turns twenty-one? No. It's an age that was chosen somewhat arbitrarily (at one time it was the age of legal majority) and has no relevance to whether or not a person will behave responsibly with regard to alcohol (or anything else).

It's time to end this hypocrisy. I call upon Senators Kohl and Feingold to sponsor legislation to remove the federal proscription against the individual states once again deciding how best to see to the regulation of alcohol sales and consumption within their borders. No more second class citizenry!

Kevin J Mack
Ashton Corners, WI

Is the (current) reason that we're fighting in Iraq that the terrorists are all out there (somewhere) and they have to be fought (somewhere) and it's Iraq because Iraq was chosen by the admin. years ago for previously listed reasons? (and things are really as good as can reasonably be expected?)

How truly sad that the best we can do at promoting peace in the world is to lead a probably endless "war on terror" against an "enemy" that must be "utterly defeated" for us to "be safe".

Sounds very familiar too. Is this not the usual state of things? The United States, mankind in general, have never seen long periods of real peace. We can blame everything on "evil" in the world or "evil" people but where does that get us? It's still up to us to intelligently respond. Is war the only way to oppose "evil"?

A letter writer from Sunday claims that " there are many parallels between this war and WWII", the one that he cites being that when we were attacked by Japan we declared war on Hitler too, because "we knew that he was really the same threat". So the parallel is in our response, then and now, not in the situation. Germany and Japan were countries (making them easy to find) with powerful and aggressive armies and navies which were occupying countries and sinking ships and posing a very real threat to world peace. Can we say the same about the "terrorists"?

Or are we at war with the Islamic world? Kill 'em all? That's usually how you fight "the enemy", right? Kill 'em all? Or is it Islamo-fascism (not a word) that we're at war with? And how do we kill them all? Start by hoping they're all in Iraq, I guess.

Here's a question for ya (especially if your name is George Bush):

If the people that we're fighting over there so we don't have to fight them over here are really terrorists intent on destroying our "way of life" (over here) then why are they in Iraq, and not over here attempting to destroy said way of life through acts of terrorism, suicide or otherwise?

Could it be that they are in Iraq because Iraq is what is important to them? Could it be that even though we have done very little to safeguard the home front, it's not that easy to pull off a major terrorist action? Could it be that the way to respond to 9/11 is to tighten security at the airports and at sporting events, try to find Osama bin Laden if we must and then go about our lives?! We don't need to have a "War on Terror"!

The fighting in Iraq is another issue. For whatever reasons, right or wrong (or a little of each?), we are fighting in Iraq. Some of our objectives have been accomplished (and some have been proved to be unfounded). What remains? That depends. Did we set out to impose democracy upon them? I hope not. Remember when (some of our) forebears went around imposing Christianity on anyone they encountered? And/or killed them?

Maybe it should be more to allow them to determine for themselves what their type of government will be. The big problem with that, of course, is, who are they? Is there a true Iraqi national? Is there a true Iraq? What?

If we have a role, and inevitably we do, it can/should only be to provide security. It can't be up to us to decide the course of their political future.

This would likely not be especially popular with the current administration (nor any likely future one). The desire to bring order to the world is not hard to understand and our way of life IS the best, right? As for providing security only: it would essentially be police work, always a thankless job. And who knows what would emerge as the new Iraq? I don't think the powers that be like very many of the possible outcomes. Anybody?

"Happy" anniversary everyone. I propose that we observe it by not killing any innocents anywhere in the world today. I promise. Will you?