Word: talibanism
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...increase the 33,000-person U.S. military presence, but pacifying a country so large and unruly will require hundreds of thousands of troops that the U.S. doesn't have. And so no less a figure than General David Petraeus has endorsed a wholly different solution: negotiating with the Taliban. "You have to talk to enemies," Petraeus said on Oct. 8. "This is how you end these kinds of conflicts...
...Though he rarely admits it, President Bush has made realism the centerpiece of his second term, dispatching envoys to sit down with Sunni insurgents in Iraq, the Stalinist leadership in North Korea and the theocrats of Iran. The results have been mixed at best, and no one believes the Taliban will give up as soon as the U.S. breaks bread with them. But the alternative--endless conflict and occupation--is worse. The next President will take office in an age of dwindling resources, diminished U.S. influence and a public weary of war. Invoking John F. Kennedy, Obama says, "Strong countries...
...Taliban has regained legitimacy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, journalist Ahmed Rashid said yesterday in a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School. Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and Britain’s Daily Telegraph who wrote a best-selling book on the Taliban, said that the group has become a regional security problem—not just an Afghani one—and that it is causing instability in much of central Asia. “The Taliban has become a kind of brand now, not just of extremism but a model of society...
...better strategy might be to cut at the roots of this dissatisfaction with the central government. The Taliban has capitalized on widespread disillusion with corrupt, centrally appointed officials to recruit to its cause. Few Afghans feel that they have an adequate outlet for settling grievances, like land disputes, so they are more likely to turn to Taliban courts that have sprung up in government vacuums. Real reconciliation, says Nathan, should be taking place at the grass roots, with Afghans who have become alienated from the government. If they can be persuaded that the government is looking after their needs, they...
...This approach would also be much more palatable to Afghans from the largely non-Pashtun north, who bitterly fought Taliban rule during the civil war and are more likely to launch another war than submit to a Taliban-led government. The Taliban today operate in virtually every Afghan province, and in several places they have been able to create a parallel system of government, but they do not have the support of a majority of Afghans. Most still vividly remember the deprivations of Taliban rule, and if given a choice, they would prefer their current situation to that of eight...