HAD the defence secretary taken notice of letters published in the Daily Echo, including mine, we would not now be bogged down in a un-winable war with both our own and Nato soldiers at high risk and casualties mounting.
The fact is the population depends on the growing of poppies for their livelihood, and we are tasked with destroying these poppy fields. No army can win unless the people are on their side.
The Taliban when in power were against opium, but now support it.
A solution might be to let the farmers grow it and be paid, then seek and destroy the factories who turn it into hard drugs. Or catch the drug dealers and make the penalties for dealing so draconian that its not worth the risk.
The poppy fields of Afghanistan should not mirror the poppy fields of Flanders.
PHILIP PEARCE-SMITH, Holbury.
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