Word: afghanistans
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...Read "A New General, and a New War, in Afghanistan...
...they are behaving like the FARC, what lessons are there from Colombia that can be applied in Afghanistan? A lot of people say to me that the last thing we want to do is get involved in another messy drug war, and I always say, "Too late." The biggest challenge is corruption, because as much money as the insurgents are earning off the drug trade, corrupt officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan are earning even more. It's going to be very complex for the U.S. and for the international community, for NATO, to find reliable and trustworthy partners to work...
...several years now, the U.S. and NATO have been trying to dissuade poppy growers in Afghanistan - either by force or by encouraging them to switch to other crops. It doesn't seem to be working. Why not? Well, one reasons why farmers grow poppy is that it typically earns more than other licit crops. Anyone who has driven down Afghanistan's spine-crushing highways knows the challenges of growing fruits, gapes, oranges ... they would be completely bruised and destroyed by the time you get them to market, if you even...
...trying to reconcile with the Taliban - and when I say the Taliban, I mean the leadership of the Taliban. We're never going to beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda by trying to shoot them all. However, I do believe that there are many tribes living on the southern Afghanistan border that can be pulled away from the insurgency if offered a better alternative...
...think that we will win this war in Afghanistan and Pakistan when we make the Taliban and al-Qaeda irrelevant and offer the people of the border areas a better alternative. People want security, schools, health care. They really just want a safe place to live. To my mind, this is like an inner-city slum where there are criminal gangs terrorizing the people and cops that are on the take. We need to clean up these communities. We need to help the people of this region, and I think we'll see this situation start to turn around...