Word: warlord
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Abdul Rashid Dostum, the thuggish Afghan warlord, would not seem a likely student of Abraham Lincoln. But there he was, echoing the Gettysburg Address as he spoke recently to a large political gathering in northern Afganistan. His speech was a booming appeal for a future that offered Afghans "government by the people, for the people." To accompany his new rhetoric, Dostum also has a new look. The powerfully built Uzbek general has shaved his beard--his thick trademark moustache remains--bought some new neckties and found a good tailor...
Abdul Rashid Dostum, the thuggish Afghan warlord, would not seem a likely student of Abraham Lincoln. But there he was, echoing the Gettysburg Address as he spoke recently to a large political gathering in northern Afganistan. His speech was a booming appeal for a future that offered Afghans "government by the people, for the people." To accompany his new rhetoric, Dostum also has a new look. The powerfully built Uzbek general has shaved his beard - his thick trademark moustache remains - bought some new neckties and found a good tailor...
...lofty language, the dapper attire, even expressions of regret for making "mistakes"--all are part of an effort by Dostum, a onetime soldier of fortune whose name is a byword for a decade of warlord power, to resell himself to his compatriots and the world as a democratic politician and servant of the people in a kinder, gentler Afghanistan. Whether he and other warlords succeed in this improbable transformation is even more important to Afghanistan's future stability than is the fate of al-Qaeda remnants hiding out in the Pakistani borderlands. While the Bush Administration continues to make chasing...
...everyone is buying the warlord's new clothes. Dostum rose to power as a ruthless brawler, the Mike Tyson of Afghan politics. For a decade he moved in and out of alliances with almost every major faction on the Afghan battlefield - the Taliban included. His zest for brute strategy can be traced to his love for bozkashi, the traditional sport of the northern plains. It's not a game for the faint of heart. One team of horsemen battles to haul a dead goat to one end of a field; opponents struggle to wrest it back and drag...
...turmoil. Without much effort or expense, America can mitigate the impact of all three. There is a significant possibility that those diamonds in your jewelry came from a cave in Sierra Leone, and were picked by a seven-year-old girl working as a slave to some warlord who then exchanged those diamonds for machine guns. The “blood diamond” trade that links Sierra Leonean children with American consumers is responsible for fueling a war that probably would have fizzled out five years ago if not for the diamond revenue. In Angola, the Unita rebels sustained...