Forget the usual explanations of the dot-com bust and the out-of-control-uber-hype-of-technology driving the American economy into a tailspin. The Taliban has a better story.

Reuters reports that "Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement has identified the root of the U.S. economic slowdown „ their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's ban on opium poppy cultivation. The Taliban maintains that it's no coincidence that the U.S. economy started to falter, immediately after Omar banned poppy cultivation in late 2000, sending prices soaring by reducing supply to the international drug trade after years of increasing output."