Note to self: when fighting militants in a giant forest made of pot, it's best not to try to burn the place down (unless you've got time to make a run for some munchies, that is).
Canadian troops in Afghanistan found this out the hard way.
Reuters reports the troops were fighting Taliban militants when they were met with a greener, more potent enemy: a 10-foot-tall marijuana forest.
The Taliban fighters were using the dense thicket of plants for cover, so the troops were forced to eliminate the weedy threat.
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy and 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,"
General Rick Hillier said in a speech in Ottawa.
"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," Hiller said.
Hillier added that after the fight, a soldier said: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,220983,00.html
So they are not just growing poppies...[&:]
Taliban Smoked Out of Pot Forest
