The Russians have a good point for once.

Yes and losing 30 000 a year from heroin is quite a few. The problem is that the whole campaign never considered the rebuilding of the Afghan economy. I would have thought that buying the entire crop and then use it for weaning addicts off the street drug would eliminate the problems with petty crime to feed the drug habits.

the Russians couldn't win in Afghanistan
who still believes that we can ... ho hum ...

Don't the Russians have a problem with birth rates as it is? 30k people a year's well rough...

Also, if the Russian mob wasn't so heavily linked to the government they could maybe lessen the impact at street level

I can't remember what the result was in the argument of whether the crops could be used for medicines

I think that this year they actually had a overall increase in the population for the first time in years.

As for the corruption between government and the gangs, i would say that is mythical, but the government are more interested in controlling the former republics rather than other domestic matters.

The reach of the Russian mob isn't mythical at all, there's entire sections of the Russian economy that's propped/held up by them one way or another, not to mention so many of them are ex-KGB, GRU and so on. The links are definitely there, and many a journalist has paid the price for trying to get to the bottom of a bigger story that involved them. There's smaller individual gangs, but they're pretty much allowed to exist to carry out suspicious fires/explosions and racist attacks.

Not just that the crop should be bought by the nato governments and turned into opiate derivatives for medical uses. Make health care cheaper, Brings afghan farmers on our side, Makes the west a profit and lessens illicit supply.

Well I know that the Russian mafia do have links to the kremlin, but as to whether they have enough influence to control drug policy is another matter?

The drugs trade for them almost certainly provides the money and muscle to enable 'expansion' in other wares and legitimate businesses (especially in capital cities outside Russia, London being a good example), so I wouldn't be too surprised at the Kremlin turning a blind eye where need be. They certainly haven't did much about the racists making Russia even colder for the Jews, wealthy or not*

* Though that's a bit of a concern in Europe too.