insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

i dont know what to quite make of this report, whether its real or not is certainly open to debate, i would not trust the US.

that comment is in relation to insurgents in Iraq, apparently there has been drug paraphernalia including needles being found in buildings where allied troops have stormed after taking insurgents out.

interesting comments:

http://www.theunionleader.com/articl...?article=49537

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Certainly smacks of typical American anti-middle east propaganda.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Very much so. If they can't beat the oposition, it's obviously because they're on drugs. Didn't the yanks come out with that approach a few years ago when a swimmer from Eire kept winning all the gold medals in the Olympics?

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Yeah... It is all rubbish, because no drugs come from the middle east do they? Making, selling and distributing drugs are completely ingrained into the society there, so they can't take the high ground.

All the drugs that increase strength are synthetic and aren't made in the middle east though but wouldn't be suprising if they did. Some of the firefights stretch out over days, they'd need something to keep them wired enough to fight. Dealing drugs can be quite a fundraiser for funding a war. Also, this isn't really speculation, they said they have found the evidence. I won't call them liars, even if anyone else does. At lease until someone can prove otherwise.

Even so, being wired up with drugs can only do so much though. I think those marines aren't shooting well enough, or the insurgents are better armoured than the coalition realise. Even without armour though, 5 x 9mm rounds doesn't equal an immediate death sentence, especially from a distance and if they manage to not hit anything major. 50cent was shot 9 times, at close range and survived. He was shot in the face as well.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

the thing is because drugs such as opium are big business in some countries such as afganistant it does not make it 'automatically correct' to assume what the officers say is right.

yes the report mentions cocaine but adrenaline ?

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Hmm.. the way the Iraqi prisoners were treated was inhumane and totally disgusting. Maybe they were 'on drugs' too, either that or totally disturbed people? :no: (The people who treated them in that way)

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Yup but it doesn't make it automatically correct to assume that the marines are liars like some are suggesting.

AFAIK it's not that hard to make, and even easier to import. Not like they have to worry about the authorities out there much is there?

Not only does what they say sound plausible, but if I was an insurgent, or in charge of them, i'd pick precisely that course of action. Guns are ok as far as they go, but they need an alert, lucid person to fire it as well.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Hmmm, people being shot multiple times and still going...
Buildings landing on people and they're still kicking...
It's not drugs, it's zombies! (well that's what my zombie survival guide suggests)

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Imagine the scene... The Iraqi soldier takes some LSD by mistake, then looks for Americans only to see a 9 foot tall rainbow coloured goat walking toward him..

Actually, back on topic. Isn't one of the side effects of cocaine paranoia? If so, it would not be good to take coke, then sit there while enemy soldiers actually *are* trying to kill you.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Have these guys not heard of bullet proof vests??

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Another effect of cocaine is to make you think everyone likes you, which isn't a survival strategy in combat. Opiates make you drowsy, which also doesn't do your survival prospects much good when the firing starts. They're used by practically every army in the world to treat pain though, so finding evidence of their use around a combat zone is hardly shocking.

punky - which drugs are manufactured in Iraq? Come to that, which drugs were manufactured in Afghanistan before the US invasion?

Drugs and fighting are linked though, from Vietnam to the original Assassins, who fired themselves up with marijuana before going on murderous sprees. You could probably class the WWI trench cigarette in there, too. It's not surprising people want to get out of their minds in such desperate circumstances.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Heroin.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Exactly, the only reason why opium poppy growing reduced was because the taliban had no quarms with killing the farmers.
Our forces, being the "good guys", can't exactly do that now can they?
Think of the outrage if our forces started wiping out farmers

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Incorrect. The Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppies in 2000, and enforced it, cutting the supply of heroin drastically (after the stockpiles of the stuff had been sold off as the price inevitably rocketed) That ban is now no longer in operation and opium is being grown again in large amounts.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n904/a07.html

"They framed the ban "in very religious terms," citing Islamic prohibitions against drugs, and that made it hard to defy, he added. Those who defied the edict were threatened with prison. "

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

I beg to differ.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2857017.stm

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Doom4 to be set in Iraq...attack of the zombies.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

By posting a link supporting my argument? Rather subtle way to differ. I quote:

"The Taleban government which took power in most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s stamped down hard on the country's long-established heroin trade.

But with precious few other ways for Afghan farmers to make money, many of them are returning to poppy cultivation. "



1996 - Taliban takes over Afghanistan, the world's top heroin producers. They, being mad religious fundamentalists, believe that everything they need to run the country is in the Koran, which says 'no drugs'. However, being new kids on the block, they haven't got the strength to do this yet and poppy is grown in the usual large quantities.

2000 - Taliban, having consolidated their power in the preceding four years, ban drug production in accordance with their nutty religious beliefs. Being by now all-powerful, they can really back this up with enforcement action that makes Guantanamo look like a bit of a tea party, which is needed because the measure is highly unpopular. Hence drug production plummets, prices go up, people who stockpiled the stuff make a massive profit, as always happens when something is banned.

2001 - post 9/11 the Taliban realise that they are about to get walloped, so relax the ban on growing poppy in an effort to keep things together, to no avail, they're kicked out, and farmers, removed from the threat of Taliban enforcement, start growing like mad.

March 2003
"Afghanistan retook its place as the world's leading producer of heroin last year, after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban which had banned cultivation of opium poppies."

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

To answer BBking's original points: Yes I meant heroin, and although Iraq doesn't produce heroin, it isn't impossible to produce drugs, and its even easier to import them. Wern't there a lot of farmers massacred by Saddam in the south because they grew drugs?

Anywho. Afghanistan isn't the only country in the middle east. The middle east includes the "Golden Crescent" of heroin: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. You can easily dismiss allegations of drug use when it comprises of most of their modern history. AFAIK Syria used to have a big problem with drugs but have since cleaned up a bit?

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

I sincerely doubt that the insurgent was shot with a submachinegun, fireing 9mm rounds.

In a USMC Rifle Platoon, there are two weapons systems available to increase the firepower of the Marines. These are :-

1). The M 240 Squad Automatic Weapon, firing a 5.56mm M198 standard Nato Ball Round.

2). The M 249 General Purpose Machinegun, firing a 7.62mm Nato Ball Round.

Having been traing in FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas), the contact ranges in firefights are considerably less than those of a typical battlefield. While battlefield ranges are considered to be 300m, in Urban Warfare ranges of 50 - 100m are more likely. So putting a five round burst into the torso of a 'tango' is more than feasible. While the wounds from a military ball round, even from several rounds, prolly wont kill immediately, they do tend to put the target on their ass. For those of you who have ever seen the films of British soldiers going over the top during the Battle of the Somme, you will have seen British soldiers dropping like boned fish. This is caused by the bodies central nervous system 'shutting down' at the moment of impact. When a person is shot, they dont go spinning around as per the movies.

So, in my own opinion, if the descritions of Iraqi insurgents taking multiple gun shot wounds and not falling over. Then perhaps the yanks are correct in their assertation that insergents where under the infulence of drugs.

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

My money's still with Zombie activity

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Have you guys not seen Scar face (class film) At the end he gets shot up loads of times and still stands fighting :erm:


It is possible. :eek:

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

But, in all fairness Russ, that swimmer was then found guilty of taking drugs (I can't believe I've just supported the Americans *shudder*)

:erm: it is a film, skunk - not necessarily real :D

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Dont Pee on my bonfire I thought it was a true story :( Gutted :cry:

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

I'm just kidding :D

'Say hello to my leedl fren!'

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

I agree - last time I checked, the SMG was no longer in service ;)


Again - I agree with these points.


I have seen with my own eyes the effect of a 5.56 round at short range, the problem with it is that unless you hit the heart/spine, the buggers can keep coming..

with the old SLR (7.62) if someone took a hit, it did not matter where, they went down, and stayed down. However with the 5.56, they can stay up. When the adrenaline is pumping around your body, you may not even realise you have been hit.

I dealt with a wounded British soldier who was hit three times, once in the shoulder, once in the lower abdomen (missing and vital organs) and once right on the chest plate of his CBA, he continued fighting for half an hour, and only realised he was hit when the firefight was over, and he noticed he had blood on him.

The problem is that moderm weapons are deigned to wound, not to kill (it costs a lot more to treat a wounded soldier - doctors, nurses, hospitals etc, than it does to bury a dead one).

Whilst it would not suprise me in the slightest that these insurgents are taking drugs, this would only enhance the ability the body already has to keep going when logic says that you should be down and out.

as ever - my opinions only - feel free to disagree.
____________

Oh, and I forgot to mention the Americans never give their fighter pilots drugs to keep them alert - do they ?
Ahem

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Since when is did Afganistan, Pakistan and Iran become part of Middle East/

Re: insurgents fighting with drugs ?
 

Well it's not east (india) or the far east (orient) is it? and it's not central (africa), and it's not the west (americas).... so it's middle east (egypt - afghanistan/pakistan) ;)

Technically its Asia (Sinai to the bit of russia across from Alaska), the middle east doesn't exist geographically.