Word: talibanize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wants to send tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops there, expand the Afghan army and dispatch boatloads of Western civilians to help build a governmental infrastructure that actually works. He also wants a high-octane diplomatic push across the border into Pakistan, which al-Qaeda and the Taliban have made their home base...
...last year that the Afghan government "is weak; it is corrupt; it has a very thin leadership veneer." And it's not just the Americans. On Sunday NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer wrote in the Washington Post that "the basic problem in Afghanistan is not too much Taliban; it's too little good governance. Afghans need a government that deserves their loyalty and trust; when they have it, the oxygen will be sucked away from the insurgency...
...salaries are so low that nobody stays. On a trip to Helmand last summer I met a farmer who had been offered a water pump that would have enabled him to turn his desert-like property into a field of wheat and vegetables. He declined it, fearing that the Taliban would find out he had accepted a gift from foreigners and would execute him as a spy. (See pictures from Prince Harry's deployment to Helmand...
...from crime remain out of reach. As one 13-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and raped on her way home from school told me, "Yes, I used to like school, but this happened to me when I walked home one day. Life has not improved since the Taliban left. Either way I can't get an education, but at least under the Taliban I wouldn't have to worry about getting raped...
...When farmers are afraid of water pumps and young girls are nostalgic for Taliban rule, it is clear that there has been a strategic failure. Success in Afghanistan will not be measured by the number of Taliban killed or the capture of Osama bin Laden. Even elections mean little when most Afghans assume that they are fixed by foreign nations from the outset. No, success will come as incrementally as the number of teenagers who graduate from school and find a job. It will come when Afghans look to their police for help, and when they can get justice from...