Word: pashtun
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...installed in Kabul. Yet in 2009, the U.S. is still fighting the Taliban, and al-Qaeda operatives are still plotting from Afghanistan. And one part of the region's deadly muddle has gotten worse. In 2001 there were fears that the war in Afghanistan would destabilize Pakistan. (The Pashtun ethnic group, which makes up a large part of the Taliban insurgency, straddles the border between the two countries.) Those fears are now reality; the Pakistani Taliban threatens nuclear-armed Pakistan's viability as a state even more than its cousins jeopardize Afghanistan...
...door will be far more complicated than anything they have seen, simply because the Pakistani military doesn't have the skills and resources to conduct an effective counterinsurgency. U.S.-operated Predator drones have successfully targeted al-Qaeda leadership in the border areas, but at the cost of inflaming the Pashtun-led insurgency on the Pakistan side. Stabilizing Afghanistan might well become crucial to preventing the far more terrifying prospect of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan. Says U.S. Army Brigadier General John Nicholson Jr., who commands U.S. and NATO troops in southern Afghanistan: "If the Pashtun population of Pakistan sees...
...Mehsud, thought to be about 35, is an uneducated Pashtun tribesman from a modest clan; his family reportedly made their living driving trucks. He suffers from diabetes...
...Obama Administration's surge in Afghanistan needs to be short and sweet and avoid stepping on Pashtun toes. It absolutely must not be the first stage of creating an Afghanistan of our dreams, or else it will most certainly become the one of our nightmares...
...little doubt that if the British had had Cobra helicopters in 1842 it would not have lost its army in Afghanistan. But this shouldn't be cause to throw the history books on the bonfire. After three wars the British never managed to pacify Afghanistan - largely because the Pashtun wouldn't allow them...