Word: talibans
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...Taliban has ravaged Pakistan, but its leadership is in tatters. After weeks of denials, two Pakistani Taliban commanders admitted on Aug. 25 that the group's chief, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed in an Aug. 5 U.S. missile strike. The commanders also confirmed reports that Hakimullah Mehsud, a regional chieftain close to Baitullah and one of the organization's rising stars, had been tapped to take...
...decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister, were tied, with about 40% each. But few of those votes came from Karzai's Pashtun strongholds in the south, where turnout was light - owing to Taliban threats - but heavily managed. "It's not exactly one man, one vote out in the rural areas," a Western diplomat told me. "The tribal leader gathers everyone together and says, 'We're voting for Candidate X.'" In some cases, apparently, tribal leaders have simply stamped all the ballots themselves; with literacy...
...license to collect money for themselves. (An exception appears to be in the effective, if fledgling, Afghan army.) "I have yet to meet an Afghan civilian who has anything positive to say about the central government," a senior U.S. official told me. "They don't like the Taliban very much, but the Taliban at least provide a system of justice, plus some goods and services, and they'll go with that...
...That is why Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says the military situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. "Last week I spoke to a couple of Army Rangers who had just engaged the enemy," Mullen told me. "They said it was like fighting the Marines. The Taliban were well trained, better organized, much tougher fighters than they'd been in the past." And that is why it is widely expected that General Stanley McChrystal will be requesting more troops when his review of the situation on the ground is completed in a few weeks. I'm told that President...
...Which still leaves the nagging question: What is the right thing to do in Afghanistan? It should be remembered that we invaded with cause: the Taliban government was providing safe havens for al-Qaeda, from which the Sept. 11 attacks were launched. Having routed the existing Afghan government, we had a responsibility to restore order. We have bungled that responsibility for eight years, attempting a Western version of order: central governance, the appearance of democracy - but largely ignoring traditional Afghan ways of social organization. The national-security challenge still exists, although its locus has shifted across the border to Pakistan...