“If the US had not run off to the Iraq quagmire, and had stayed the course in Afghanistan and properly rebuilt it, we could have completely uprooted al-Qaeda and the Taliban, put an end to the poppy trade, and created an economic efflorescence that linked major Asian powers in the kind of trade networks that discourage war and instability.”

Why is forcing Afghan farmers not to grow opium poppies a necessary or even worthwhile policy goal for the occupying forces to pursue?

Is there some kind of requirement that all countries everywhere have to go along with the drug regulation policies popular in Washington, D.C.? Even if it involves arresting farmers and destroying their most lucrative cash crop?