Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fecklessness. Even though he came to power on the back of a U.S.-led invasion, Karzai has portrayed himself as the one man willing to criticize coalition forces. "Karzai wants his legacy to be an Afghan leader who stood up against the foreigners," says Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies...
...Karzai could instead be remembered as the leader who drove away international support and plunged his country into chaos. Americans, tiring of bad news from Afghanistan, are asking why the U.S. should pour more troops in if they cannot make any headway against the Taliban and al-Qaeda or send billions more dollars if they vanish into the baggy pockets of Kabul officials...
...could be disastrous. "It will be dog-eat-dog here," says Ashraf Ghani, a U.S.-educated presidential contender. In the vacuum created by a U.S. pullout, he argues, the Taliban would retake Kabul while millions of Afghans who embraced Western promises of girls' education, democracy and a place for Afghanistan in the 21st century would flee the country...
...carpet. "All these fancy new villas in Kabul where the diplomats and the rich businessmen live? They'll go to al-Qaeda families," says Mir, adding that a "defeat" of U.S.-led forces would be a boon to Muslim extremists worldwide, much as the Soviet army's retreat from Afghanistan was during the 1980s...
...Taliban Thrives" [Sept. 7]: Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is comparable to placing one's hand in a pail of water. When you stick your hand into the water, you create an effect. When you pull it out, the water returns to its original state. While we occupy those countries, we suffer casualties and financial disaster. Once we leave, everything will return to the way it was before: tribal wars, Muslim traditions and culture. We will have accomplished nothing. You cannot change thousand-year-old cultures into democratic states in a few years. It takes decades, even centuries...