Taliban hosted AQ, gave us 9/11. We may be stuck in a quagmire, but there’s more to the Taliban than banning heroin and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Saudi Arabia gave you 9/11 yet your president is super friendly with them.

It's almost as if you're looking for excuse to kill people.

I'm not saying the Taliban is reducible to banning heroin, I'm relaying the actual history of US foreign policy toward Af chiefly hinging on that dilemma. When the Taliban is out of power, heroin production goes up. We know this. For decades.

Decades? How about the British presence in the region?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War

(and so on and so forth..)

I don't see Taliban or heroin (or "opium") in that article, but sure, if you want to expand the relationship to being between theocratic rulers and vice production I'm fine with that. I didn't read the article to see if that's actually what was going on 200 years ago, but I'm assuming you aren't posting an offtopic reply.