Afghan War: Opium the Real Cause?

For 15 years the current Afghan war has been raging (and previous civil wars for decades before that). We rarely hear what it's about or why it continues, but a single line in a story today about the Taliban's new "commando squad" shines some light on the situation.

The line is, "The Taliban regard Helmand as their heartland. They share Pashtun ethnicity with its residents and the province's vast opium output has helped fund the war against the government in Kabul, now in its 15th year."

Traditional Muslims are against the growing of opium poppies. The Taliban, apparently, for all their strict Wahabist beliefs, are not.

If this is a major dynamic in the war why isn't it wider publicized?

At one point, the Taliban was poised to eliminate the opium trade in Afghanistan. Then the US decided to invade, and first the Taliban were too busy to police poppies, and then they needed money to keep fighting. So now Afghanistan once again produces most of the world's opium.

Perhaps the US doesn't like to talk about it because they know more people will find out their role in this history.

Yeah come to think of it I remember reading speculation in 2001 that one reason for our invasion of Afghanistan was that the CIA was trying to protect their opium/heroin trade from Taliban prohibitionists.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. What an odd and confusing turn of events.