KANDAHAR—The Taliban rejected a UN report showing opium cultivation had quadrupled, accusing poppies of restoring the Republic without the Emir's permission.
“The figures are fabricated,” New York Times bestselling author Sirajuddin Haqqani declared. “We abolished narcotics by decree. Any surviving plant is foreign propaganda.”
The CIA welcomed the continuity. “We spent 20 years building Afghan institutions,” Langley explained. “Good to know something survived our withdrawal.”
“The Republic collapsed, the Taliban returned, and the poppies survived,” said Washington’s envoy to Kandahar Bashir Noorzai. “America finally has an Afghan success story to share with Kandahar.”
IEA officials defended insurgency-era opium revenue as jihad financing: narcotics become un-Islamic only when someone else collects the tax.
Noorzai proposed recognizing poppies as Afghanistan's first bipartisan institution. “They bankrolled jihad, survived the Republic and adapted to Sharia without a Loya Jirga.”
Republic officials offered opium wholesale expertise, but Ghani sanctioned them for rebuilding Afghanistan’s economy without his permission.
When IEA demanded a recount, the UN showed satellite images. Kandahar threatened to send suicide bombers into orbit via Orbitworks rocket to teach the Yanks about Afghan sovereignty.
After 25 years of war, poppies had mastered Afghanistan's only constitutional principle: regimes fall, constitutions burn, but whoever controls the harvest defines freedom.