Troops battle 10-foot marijuana plants
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet-high marijuana plants.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.
"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.
One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
Yeah, right. This soldier was probably saying, "damn, look at the size of this herb", ain't nobody back home gonna believe this". "One of these plants will do us for a year or more". "The hell with the Taliban, start digging this stuff up".
Can you imagine? A 10' herb plant. There aren't enough snacks to handle the "munchies" these plants would produce. That's the problem.
As usual, check out www.myspace.com/akuasharpe for some cool people and cool tunes. Also, if you run across this somewhere else and want to check out the rest of my blog, click BobbySharpe.blogspot.com.
Peace & Soulz,
Bobby Sharpe
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