Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Taliban

There is no doubt that the security situation in Afghanistan has gotten quite a bit worse (it’s now worse than Iraq). Places that have been “safe” in the past have started seeing different forms of violence. What you probably here about most, is the IEDs (roadside bombs) or direct contact ambushes, like the ones that killed the 9 soldiers in Konar or the 9 French soldiers. As for the locals, they face intimidation, theft and murder. What all these things have in common is that the “Taliban” perpetrated the crime. If someone attacks coalition forces… the Taliban did it. If someone gets kidnapped… the Taliban did it. If someone steals a car… you guessed it, the Taliban did it. I’m not trying to say that there is no Taliban threat, in fact the Taliban is very real, very evil and causing a lot of problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, I’m not sure that everything that goes wrong here can be attributed to the Taliban. Afghanistan is a terribly poor country, one of the poorest in the world. They lack sufficient police and military forces, they lack a stable government and they lack faith in what little services they do have. With all that stacked against them, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there might be some crime that is perpetrated by the desperate and deranged, with no affiliation to the Taliban.

Thank you and God Bless.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great piece Marc....

Can you say Journalist?

Stay focused young man....

See you over the Holidays!!!!!