July is here, and so all kinds of funny things appear in the news these days. Here’s an interesting bit of analysis from the Conference of Defence Associations in today’s Globe and Mail:

Retired colonel Alain Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations said it’s tough to persuade poppy farmers in Kandahar – Taliban territory – to grow alternate crops. “The drug lords and the Taliban at night would go to the farmer and say, ‘Listen, either you grow opium for us or we will chop off your head.’ “

Chop off their head? Really? Hmm, I thought Afghan farmers grew poppies because they are among the poorest people on Earth and the billions of foreing aid dollars sent to Afghanistan never seem to make it to the countryside…