Word: clear
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...been protecting his interests by making deals with some pretty unsavory characters who wield real power on the ground - and that often requires turning a blind eye to corruption and other transgressions. Washington is looking to turn up the heat on Karzai to crack down on corruption by making clear that its commitment to Afghanistan is finite. Yet if Karzai took the threat of a U.S. pull-out seriously, it could make him even more reliant on ties with unsavory protectors...
...themselves. Obama reportedly rejected all four options offered by his national-security staff on Nov. 11 - ranging from a relatively light increase of some 10,000 troops, mostly for training purposes, to the 40,000 reinforcements requested by McChrystal to wage a counterinsurgency fight - because they failed to make clear how and when responsibility for the war would be transferred to Afghan forces. By doing so, Obama may have pointed to the elephant in the room. On present indications, the Afghan forces are unlikely anytime in the near future to be ready and willing to take over the fight against...
Even if Karzai did a more effective job of governing, it's far from clear how many Afghans would be willing to fight their fellow Afghans in the Taliban. While poverty and corruption at the local level certainly fuel the resentment on which the Taliban capitalizes, it is not a protest movement against bad governance as much an insurgency rooted in Islamic and nationalist identities that challenges a political order installed and defended by foreign armies...
Rather than allowing himself to be drawn blindly into a quagmire, Obama is insisting on a clear-eyed view of the prospects for success and ultimately, withdrawal. And that's likely to confirm that even pursuing the most limited kind of success in Afghanistan might require an expanded troop commitment that goes well beyond the next U.S. presidential election...
...Mercedes Coloma, president of the Madrid-based Confederation of Parents of Students, the problem lies less with the content than with who is distributing it. "This is a clear usurpation of parents' rights," she says. "In their publicity, [the government] talks about creating a space for exchange and dialogue about sex. But that space already exists: it's the family...