TALIBAN, PARTNER IN WAR

While the Taliban regime merits no defense and its harboring of Osama bin
Laden is unconscionable, your piece on Afghanistan ("Understanding the
Crisis: Afghanistan," Times, Sept. 30) would have benefited from more
careful editing.

"The Poppy Connection" section suggests that the Taliban are supporting
opium production in their country. If I'm not mistaken, satellite imagery,
overflights and U.N. reports indicate that the Taliban have had the
greatest success of all South-Asian governments in reducing opium-poppy
production in their territory. The Taliban are one of our more aggressive
partners in our other ill-defined war, the "war on drugs."

- - Matt Warning, Seattle