Word: afghanization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...side of a tiger pen, watching as the animals tear it to pieces. A menu of sorts is available for tourists to choose from: about $120 gets you a live cow, which is then released into the pen with the tigers, with predictable consequences. (See TIME's photo-essay "Afghan Tragedy: Death of a Snow Leopard...
Mullen received a briefing from the local Marine commanders. The Taliban had been driven out of town but were still lurking about at night, trying to intimidate the locals. Then he was greeted by the provincial governor, Gulab Mangal, one of the few Afghan officials with a reputation for both probity and effectiveness. A shura consisting of about three dozen tribal elders was waiting under a sheer nylon tent adorned with local rugs. Mangal made an opening statement, explaining that most of these elders had turned against the outlandishly corrupt provincial Afghan government years ago (Mangal's immediate predecessor...
...requests. But he had to warn them, "I didn't come here today with any magic formula ... Inshallah, we will provide the services as soon as possible." The entire Marjah project - which is meant to be a model for all Afghanistan - will rest on the ability of the Afghan government to make good on that. The early returns are not promising. Commanding General Stanley McChrystal promised a "government in a box" that would unwrap itself as soon as the Taliban were tossed from town, but several U.S. civilian aid workers told me that the Afghan ministries were slow...
...Palace insiders say that before Obama's surprise visit, Afghan-U.S. relations had strained to the point where Karzai would speak to only three Americans: Ambassador Karl Eikenberry; General Stanley McChrystal, commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan; and the unnamed CIA station chief. Of those three, Karzai is said to trust only the CIA chief, who reportedly led the special-forces team that protected Karzai on his first forays into southern Afghanistan to turn the Pashtun tribes against Taliban rule. Karzai is said to be leery of Eikenberry, ever since the media leaked the contents of cables...
...hope is that Obama's tact and personal touch may have succeeded in patching up the running feuds between the Afghan leader and the top U.S. representatives in Kabul. For better or worse, Obama and Karzai are stuck with each other, and they will need each other's help if they are ever going to repair Afghanistan to the point that U.S. troops can starting heading back home...