Word: afghanistans
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...More Things Change ... Re "How the 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, traditions and culture. We will have accomplished nothing. You cannot change thousand-year-old cultures into democratic states in a few years...
...believe the people of the U.S. and its allies have the perseverance it will take to make Afghanistan a viable state. The alternative, however, is regional instability that will violently challenge the West for decades. Wouldn't it be preferable to stick to our task and improve our methods - for example give the locals more of a stake as the author suggested - than to leave and relinquish our gains? Nancy Schimkat, WEINHEIM, GERMANY...
...your article you referred to "the billions of dollars spent on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan." Since you seem to have some hard information, perhaps you could enlighten us as to what this has achieved in the way of improvements to the lives of ordinary Afghans. Or is it merely rebuilding the damaged infrastructure caused by bombing sorties carried out by the U.S. military? Jonathan Wright, LONDON...
...election campaign that has been interminably dull, even by German standards, the Sept. 4 missile strike on two oil tankers hijacked by Taliban insurgents in northern Afghanistan was always going to grab attention. The U.S. strike, called in by a German commander worried about the security of his troops, allegedly killed some 90 people, including dozens of civilians. It also reminded German voters that the distinction between supporting a combat mission - which is what they like to think their soldiers are doing - and tackling bad guys directly can blur pretty quickly in the Hindu Kush...
...polite posturing of Germany's election campaign captures the mood in most European capitals at the moment. Both Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats of Frank-Walter Steinmeier remain committed to Berlin's 4,000-strong troop deployment in Afghanistan as part of the multinational force there. But Die Linke, a smaller, left-wing party, has won support by campaigning on an immediate withdrawal, and as public support for the Afghanistan mission falls even the mainstream leaders are having to take notice. Steinmeier has recently hinted that he would pull troops...