Afghanistan is more than the place where Osama bin Laden might be hiding. It's a place that originates  enormous amounts of dope, every year.
 
Most of that dope comes in the form of opium, papaver somniferum, the sleep producing flower, valued the world over for its somniferous properties, its superlative narcotic effect, and the ease with which it may be converted into cold hard cash.
 
Some people refer to Afghanistan as a failed narco-state, but those people are wrong.

Afghanistan may be thought of as a flourishing, enormously successful narco-state.  It is estimated to produce in excess of ninety percent of the world's supply of opium. That much opium is worth billions of dollars every year, even before its conversion to morphine, codeine and heroin.
 
Thefore, the war in Afghanistan may be thought of as either the Third or Fourth Opium War, depending on whether you count the French, British and American wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s AD.

 You may remember that the First and Second Opium Wars were conducted in the South China Sea, fought between the subjects of the soverign of Great Britain and the armies of the Qing Dynasty of China during the mid-1800s AD.

Through the prism of history, Opium Wars I and II are seen to have started because the Qing Dynasty wished to limit the trade of Chinese slaves and dope, and the operators of the British Empire violently disagreed.

The disagreement resulted in the capture and occupation of the island of Hong Kong by the British, and the capitulation to the opium and human trade by the Chinese. The occupation of Hong Kong continued well  into the 20th century, though the legal trade of opium there became a murkier proposition.

The war in Afghanistan did not begin as an opium war, but it may well end there. For all the Taliban's excesses, they succeded in limiting the production of opium during their time in government, by promoting terror in the local population.

In contrast, the production of opium has increased every year since Osama bin Laden allegedly engineered the destruction of the World Trade Center, promoted terror in the local population, and caused the latest invasion of Afghanistan.

A 2007 Ispos-Reid survey in Canada suggests that eight in ten Canadians were likely to support the legalization of the opium trade in Afghanistan. Canada's Armed Forces already support the opium trade in Afghanistan, by looking the other way while the poppies grow.

Canada, you might recall is a renouned producer of dope, chiefly marijuana, valued the world over for its superlative psychoactive properties and the ease with which it may be converted into cold hard cash.

Yet no one considers Canada to be a failed narco-state, except perhaps those who operate the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

The Canadian forces in Afghanistan want to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, all of them whether they are insurgents or not. And the Taliban want to win the hearts and minds of the Canadian public, whether they support the Canadian Armed Forces activities there or not.

Since support for the opium trade is one of the few uniting elements of this violent drama, there may yet be light at the end of this tunnel of death that is the Afghanistan quagmire.