Quote:
Quote by: Nono  I fully agree with Gawd. That may actually have worked way back in 2002 when the Afghans -- exhausted after nearly a quarter century of non-stop war and with the Taliban recently kicked out of power, but not forgotten -- seemed a sight more receptive to an international community that, at the time, sounded like it actually wanted to do something for them for a change.
But no. Nobody was willing to spend actual money on it, preferring nice speeches and a military show.
Now it's too late. The Afghans (especially the Pashtuns, who are the Afghans who really count in this case) look increasingly fed up with having foreign devils around.
A good way to measure "progress", by the way, is to take a gander at the poppy crop. Once again sky-high. |
Keeping your troops in contact with a hostile populace is only going to bring about atrocities on your side, which is going to create more terrorists, which is going to make atrocities, both real and invented, more likely, limiting contact with native people is the best way to go. The poppy crop could also be a boon for afghanistan, if sold to pharmaceutical companies to meke legal drugs, a potentially lucrative business for the afghans, but instead, this resource is destroyed, only making sure that the farmers do make it into illegal drugs.