In Afghanistan under the Taliban, a draconian prohibition against the opium poppy helped fund Al Qaeda and set the stage for the 9/11 attacks. But with the chaos following the Taliban’s fall, prices have dropped and this has U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld worried that no new terrorists will come out of the mountainous country.

“This has the potential to tip the U.S. elections,” said Rumsfeld in Afghanistan on Wednesday. “Without new terrorists, public attention may shift to domestic issues, and public outcry for cutting back on civil liberties may fall.”

Rumsfeld worried that, in such a scenario, Republicans might lose in the November, 2004 United States elections. Rumsfeld warned Afghanistan that they need to enforce laws against poppies, and make illegal drug production more lucrative. “The entire world has a stake in your success,” the Secretary of Defense told the Afghan government.

Rumsfeld added that the potential loss of prohibition-related bribery in Afghanistan “posed a grave danger to the country's fledgling democracy.”

Rumsfeld was confident that Afghanistan would successfully restore prohibition-related terrorism to past levels. "There is no doubt in my mind that you are winning. The benefit of prohibition in this country is too serious to ignore,” Rumsfeld said. "The inevitable result is to funnel huge funds into the hands of government officials like yourselves, and increase your quality of life, and that would be most fortunate.”