Word: war
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most important obstacle to negotiating an acceptable compromise with the Taliban, however, is the fact that the insurgents - and a substantial part of the population - believe they're winning the war. That gives them no incentive to accept compromises offered by the government and the U.S. The purpose of the current U.S. "mini-surge" in Afghanistan, in fact, is largely to halt the Taliban's momentum, to create conditions, if not for victory, then for a stalemate in which growing numbers of fighters and commanders in the Taliban come to believe that they are unable to win on the battlefield...
Americans don't want a long war in Afghanistan. But the only way to avoid one may be to convince Afghans that the U.S. isn't going anywhere...
...America in 2009 also looks as if it could rhyme, uncomfortably, with Great Britain circa 1909. A hundred years ago, the British were coming off a proud century as the most important nation on earth. But during the 30 years between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II, the United States emerged as the unequivocal world leader, and Britain became an admirable also-ran. Applying that template to the 21st century, China would be the new us - feverish with individual and national drive, manufacturer to the world, growing like crazy, bigger and much more...
...young men in a room in Sierra Leone would have meant trouble. It was men in their teens and their 20s - but also, tragically, children even younger - who made up the Revolutionary United Front, a ragtag armed militia supported by Liberia's President Charles Taylor (now on trial for war crimes at the Hague) that devastated the country during an 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. Everywhere they went they left a calling card of chopped-off limbs, raped women and senseless bloodshed. Tens of thousands were killed and a third of Sierra Leone's 6 million people...
...Today, Freetown is making a slow recovery. Although the war is over, many of the problems associated with it are not. Ex-combatants, a large number of whom were forced to fight against their will, have not been fully reintegrated into society or accepted by their families. The extreme poverty and frequent conflict that made Sierra Leone susceptible to fighting remain. Communities still remember individual wrongdoings, and true reconciliation - somewhere between forgiving and forgetting - has not yet been achieved. (See pictures of death and life in Sierra Leone...