The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.

The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin.

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The poppies fuel the great jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 bi...

The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.

The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin.

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The poppies fuel the great jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 billion.

Destroying the fields could very well put an end to terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the Obama Administration remains intent upon protecting the poppies so that the Afghan farmers and local drug lords can reap the benefits of what purports to be a bumper crop.

Jason Striuszko a journalist embedded with the U.S. Marines in Garmser, reports that many of the leathernecks are scratching their heads at the apparent contradictions — calling in airstrikes and artillery on the elusive Taliban while assuring farmers and drug lords that they will protect the poppies.

And the third order from Commander Obama, who has never spent a day in uniform (not even as a Boy Scout), is that no enlisted man must ever question or detain, let alone stop and search, any Afghani in a burqa.

This order has resulted in Taliban militants escaping from the clutches of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade on July 8.

Members of the Brigade had managed to trap the Taliban fighters in a mud compound within the village of Khan Neshin, about 60 miles north of the Pakistani border.

With the help of a translator and a village elder, the Marines, under orders from their commanders, persuaded the trapped insurgents to free the women and children in their custody.

Within minutes, a...

And the third order from Commander Obama, who has never spent a day in uniform (not even as a Boy Scout), is that no enlisted man must ever question or detain, let alone stop and search, any Afghani in a burqa.

This order has resulted in Taliban militants escaping from the clutches of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade on July 8.

Members of the Brigade had managed to trap the Taliban fighters in a mud compound within the village of Khan Neshin, about 60 miles north of the Pakistani border.

With the help of a translator and a village elder, the Marines, under orders from their commanders, persuaded the trapped insurgents to free the women and children in their custody.

Within minutes, according Afghan Army Commander Mahaiddin Ghorr, thirty to forty figures in full burqas emerged from the mud – - some holding the hands of children – - and sauntered off into the hills.

When the Marines entered the compound an hour or so later, the place was empty.

The latest military operation has resulted in the relocation of Taliban fighters to the western and northern provinces.

This has prompted complaints from German and Italian commanders who now must deal with hundreds of enemy combatants.