With the Taliban removed from power in Afghanistan, the country continues to set record opium crops year on year. Though the US Government officially claims it is trying to cut down on opium growth in Afghanistan, the truth is that it is actively encouraging growing it - for the sake of - western - world economy.

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2006 reached 165,000 hectares, compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the ousted Taliban movement. Before the invasion of the country by US troops in 2001, the UN believed that by 2003, Afghanistan would no longer be growing opium. It seems therefore that the US invasion was just in time... and that the invasion is a stunning success, with record cultivation year after year.

As the drug trade is illegal, the UN anti-drugs chief have warned against the opium trade in Afghanistan, urging the government to exert more effort to crack down on big traffickers and remove corrupt officials and police. Afghanistan's world-leading opium cultivation rose a "staggering" 60 percent in 2007. The illicit trade soared despite the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to fight the drug. And while many analysts and political experts attribute the increase in the cultivation and trade of opium to the US occupation of Afghanistan, the largest cultivator of the opium poppy in the world, the Western media blames the ousted Taliban regime and warlords for the illicit trade. That seems unlikely, seeing it were the Taliban who had consciously made every effort to get ride of the plant.

Indeed, while the Bush administration claims that it is committed to curbing the Afghan drug trade, statistics prove that the US occupation has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. In sharp contrast, the Taliban campaign, implemented during the period 2000-2001, led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan. In 2001, opium production in the country fell to 185 tons, according to UN figures. But shortly after the US occupation, production surged, regaining and may be surpassing its historical levels.
Though the UN does not falsify the figures and its report warns against soaring opium profits in Afghanistan, it failed to acknowledge that the toppled Taliban regime was instrumental in carrying out this successful campaign, in co-ordination with the United Nations, to end this illicit trade. Furthermore, the UN said that this year's contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of $2.7 billion, but avoided mentioning that over 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.
According to the structure of British retail prices for heroin, the total proceeds of the Afghan heroin trade would be in the order of 124.4 billion dollars, assuming a 50 percent purity ratio. Assuming an average purity ratio of 36 percent and the average British price, the cash value of Afghan heroin sales would be of the order of 194.4 billion dollars.

It is therefore clear that there are powerful business and financial interests depending on narcotics, and that's why geopolitical and military control over the drug cultivation is as strategic as oil. And perhaps it could also explain the true reason why Afghanistan was invaded?
According to IMF estimates, global money laundering is between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. According to 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes "the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade." Thus, the Taliban's programme of eradicating the growth of the opium poppy would seriously have upset the world economy, for most of this illegal money is "washed" into Western bank accounts. The War on Terror may have been a War for Drugs.