Word: talibans
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...More Things Change ... Re "How the Taliban Thrives" [Sept. 7]: Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is comparable to placing one's hand in a pail of water. When you stick your hand into the water, you create an effect. When you pull it out, the water returns to its original state. While we occupy those countries, we suffer casualties and financial disaster. Once we leave, everything will return to the way it was before: tribal wars, traditions and culture. We will have accomplished nothing. You cannot change thousand-year-old cultures into democratic states in a few years...
...election campaign that has been interminably dull, even by German standards, the Sept. 4 missile strike on two oil tankers hijacked by Taliban insurgents in northern Afghanistan was always going to grab attention. The U.S. strike, called in by a German commander worried about the security of his troops, allegedly killed some 90 people, including dozens of civilians. It also reminded German voters that the distinction between supporting a combat mission - which is what they like to think their soldiers are doing - and tackling bad guys directly can blur pretty quickly in the Hindu Kush...
...European soldiers lost - 35 Germans, 31 French, 15 Italians - may not be big in comparison to the 830 Americans killed. But as a proportion of numbers deployed, casualties have been significant. An incident like that in August last year, when 10 French soldiers were killed in a single Taliban attack, has a profound impact on the home front. "We cannot continue to remain ... where the [local] population is suffering and where we count our dead without asking ... what is France's role and interest," Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry said this month, a day after France lost two more soldiers...
...Zazi's associates turn out to be mostly Afghans, that would strengthen suspicions that the Taliban are no longer limiting themselves to the Pashtun lands...
...other signs that jihadi organizations are reaching out to disaffected young Muslims in the U.S. Consider the Somali-American youths who flew from Minneapolis to join al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militia that runs much of Somalia. If it turns out that it was al-Qaeda (or the Taliban) that reached out to Zazi and his associates - and not the other way around - then it would suggest that the U.S. is vulnerable to attacks from within...