Word: opium
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Taliban, which has some fairly strong ideas about law and order, has been able to intimidate its way back into control of some areas. Karzai has an excuse: his country has suffered through 30 years of war, although the alleged participation of his brother in the Kandahar-province opium trade and the utter corruption of the Afghan civil service don't help his reputation much. Zardari has no excuse at all: his country has a brilliant, educated intelligentsia and governing class, but it has been entirely unable to provide the rudiments of civil society to the Pakistani masses, a remarkable...
Navigating America's Other War Kudos to TIME for getting it right on Afghanistan [April 20]. Cash-for-work job programs are the best initial solution in a country where Taliban commanders, financed by opium and other illegal activities, are buying the loyalty of poverty-stricken young men. This is one country where many insurgents would drop their weapons if someone paid them to do something other than fight. It may come as a surprise to many Americans that fitness and weight-lifting are fast-growing crazes in Kabul and a popular cult figure is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger...
Kudos to TIME for getting it right on Afghanistan [April 20]. Cash-for-work job programs are the best initial solution in a country where Taliban commanders, financed by opium and other illegal activities, are buying the loyalty of poverty-stricken young men. It may come as a surprise to many Americans that fitness and weight-lifting are fast-growing crazes in Kabul, and a popular cult figure is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. To many young Afghans, he embodies the virtues of discipline, goal-setting and accomplishment. Afghans prefer the U.S. to the Taliban, but they have suffered too long...
...struck by the shortsightedness of the government's policy in forcing the Korengal Valley to stop producing timber. It seems extremely foolish to deny people access to jobs and money when the alternative for them is to join the enemy. The same applies to the opium trade. It would be better for Western governments to buy the crop above the black-market price for their pharmaceutical industries, even if it meant stockpiling or perhaps destroying some of the final product. The war cannot be won; the best that can be achieved is for the allies to hold the fort while...
...reputation for ruthlessness as a warlord during the country's civil war in the 1990s. Sherzai's ability to get things done, however, has earned him another nickname from the American military commanders who work with him: the Bulldozer. Under his leadership, Nangahar, once a Taliban haven awash with opium poppies, has become one the most successful provinces in Afghanistan in terms of development and drug eradication...