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2008-06-23 Afghanistan

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Posted by Free Radical 2008-06-23 14:58|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 If it were only that the Taliban were connected to the Pakistan underworld, criminal to criminal as it were, things would be somewhat easier. But there are also direct connections to Pakistan's military through both the ISI and the regular army, and to the Islamist political parties. And of course, the untamed (or comparatively uncivilized, the distinction is one of vocabulary only) tribes of the borderlands.

The key sentence to me, such as it is, is whether the Taliban are set in their religious cult or if they are now purely a pack of criminal opportunists. To me the answer is that it doesn't matter, really. Until a great many more of them get themselves killed by the Afghan or NATO/U.S. troops, neither the Taliban nor the Pakistanis from whom they derive will be ready to give up their attempted reconquest.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-06-23 17:35|| 2008-06-23 17:35|| Front Page Top

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