Word: afghanization
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...someone who has zipped over Afghan mountains and along Iraqi river valleys in U.S. military choppers - usually clutching my stomach to avoid losing my MRE - I know there are no helicopter pilots better than those trained by the U.S. military. Nor are there any better flying machines (the White House's recent ordering of a fleet of Anglo-Italian helicopters for the President's use notwithstanding...
...Rooftops in the old city are crowded with spectators; a tin roof buckles under their weight. Police have closed down the streets; Afghan National Army soldiers guard intersections - Ashura rituals have often attracted Shi'ism's most violent sectarian foes, as the violence that has in recent days wracked Najaf in Iraq, and Karachi and Peshawar in Pakistan, where 14 were killed on Sunday in a suicide bombing. But here in Kabul, the only blood spilled is that collecting at the feet of the participants. "We are all Muslim. It is not important whether we pray with open hands...
...built the capacity of the Afghan national army and police, we would not be in the position we're in right now, facing a serious challenge in the spring from the Taliban," Afghan Ambassador Said Jawad told TIME on Thursday. "There was an underinvestment in building the capacity of the Afghan security forces, as well as [of] the Afghan government to deliver services. And now we are paying a price for that...
...wake of the Taliban ground offensive in southern Afghanistan last summer and fall, Afghan officials pledged to have 70,000 soldiers and 82,000 police officers deployed by October 2008, years ahead of schedule. But the Afghans have been pleading for help to fund the recruitment, training and equipping of those forces - and aid has been surprisingly slow in coming. Only recently, according to Jawad, has the Afghanistan government been able to raise the pay of Afghan soldiers from $70 to $100 a month. If the new U.S. aid package goes through, Jawad told TIME, the government will also...
...billion in reconstruction aid sought by the Bush Administration will go largely to building an electrical power distribution system - only 6% of Afghans now have dependable electrical power, according to Jawad - and to constructing roads. Farmers unable to move crops to market in the cities are turning to opium growing because the harvest, reduced to opium paste, then processed to morphine base or finished heroin, is relatively imperishable and highly concentrated - and the trafficking groups handle all the transportation headaches. But Afghan and U.S. officials acknowledge that Afghanistan's viability as a state depends on whether the security and infrastructure...