Word: supportively
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...historian Juan Cole wrote last week, "The U.S. counter-insurgency plan assumes that Pashtun villagers dislike and fear the Taliban, and just need to be protected from them so as to stop the politics of intimidation. But what if the villagers are cousins of the Taliban and would rather support their clansmen than white Christian foreigners?" (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban...
...effective Afghan security force capable of fighting the Taliban. Desertion rates are high - 1 in 4 soldiers trained last year, by some accounts. So are rates of drug addiction. Most important, the most effective elements of the military are dominated by ethnic Tajiks, which does little to help win support of the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group and the one among which the insurgency is based. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan had no powerful army or strong state before the U.S. went in - nor does it have the oil wealth that allows Iraq to pay for its own armed forces...
...election was that only 1 in 4 registered voters actually turned out on election day. In the absence of any credible alternative, Washington will use Karzai's dependence on the West for funding and security to pressure him to deliver the sort of governance that can win popular support. But Karzai's government is widely seen as corrupt, ineffective and a tool in the hands of a foreign invader, and Afghans are mostly gloomy about the prospects for reforming it. While Karzai could be forced to respond to some egregious cases of corruption, his instinct will be to continue...
...Erap" Estrada. He was convicted on corruption charges in 2007, sentenced to life imprisonment and then pardoned by current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The 72-year-old actor - who is back on the big screen now in a comedy playing a bus driver - still counts the masses as his support base. But it is unlikely that they will vote for him in quite the same numbers as in his win in 1988, and the constitutionality of a former president running again will likely be challenged in the courts. (See Corazon Aquino's life in photos...
...higher local government posts, such as mayors and provincial governors. A parade of celebrities - including boxing champ Manny Pacquiao, running for a congressional seat - are adding the customary glamor. Aquino's sister Kris, a popular television personality, is reported to be energetically rallying her friends in entertainment to publicly support her brother. (Despite his perceived lead, he is not to everyone's taste: one local journalist memorably described him as a "crudely-cut outline of his parents.") (Read "The Meaning and Mythos of Manny Pacquiao...