Photo from today’s TIME magazine. Another good article.
South of Ghazni city, on a wide, dusty plain, lies Andar, a predominantly Pashtun district that has lately seen an upsurge in Taliban activity.
The roads in Andar, Ghazni’s largest district, are eerily quiet these days, with just a few bicycles and donkeys ferrying people between villages or to the provincial capital. But it is not poverty or backwardness that has silenced motor traffic in the area. It is a battle of wills between the Taliban and the government.
Following the latest in a series of assassinations, the government in mid-April banned unregistered motorcycles and pillion-riding throughout the district, depriving the insurgents of their preferred mode of attack.
Not to be outdone, the Taliban promptly issued a decree of its own: no vehicular movement would be allowed in the district at all. Those defying the order would be prime targets for Taliban revenge. The result is that the roads are almost empty of traffic. Days after the bans, motorcycles started to trickle back, but very few cars, testimony to the fact that residents fear the Taliban much more than the government.
Jandad Khan, a bus driver who travels regularly from Andar district to Ghazni city, said that outside district headquarters, security posts and major roads, the government exerts little authority.
“The real authority in the countryside is in hands of the Taliban who are patrolling in the area freely, without any fear, day and night,” he said.
“It looks like 100 years ago. Everyone travels by bicycle or donkey. They do not dare to bring their vehicles on roads.”
An interesting read as are most articles from the Sunday HERALD. They do take the time, after all, to print stuff actually containing firsthand information.
“Are we Losing this War Too?”
You can almost smell the grin on his face when he types these things. It’s like nothing would make him happier than to be able to say “We lost in Afghanistan.”
nobody likes losing these wars. BUt apparently some people (you, maybe?) think it’s better to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to these sorts of screw-ups. How does this situation happen? That’s the issue!
America is negotiating with Mullah Omar as we speak. Remember him? If Bush baby said he wanted me dead or alive I’m not sure I’d worry much.
#1. The fact is we pulled out key assets way too soon. We had them all buttoned up on those caves, ready to be gassed out & then Bush shoves Iraq down our throats and the Taliban’s out of the bottle when those elite assets get re-deployed.
Yes malren – that’s the fault of us liberals and not the Bush administration. Now shove your head back into you sand box and keep chanting about Bush what Eichman said about Hitler “Ehr its mein unserer Gott!!!”.
You know given how all this has been f*up I think my new phrase is “If your for Bush, your for the terrorists!”
we don’t have a big enough presence there. Plus, Iran is allowing the Talaban to cross back into Afganistan again and of course the Pakistani’s are chasing them out of Pakistan to keep their goverment stable.
I don’t know why anyone(including Bush) ever thought Afganistan could ever be stable, they have been fighting eachother or someone else for decades, hell, hundreds of years.
Even these people, who aren’t force fed instant gratifcation by the media like western people, think if the whole system isn’t better immediatly then time to go back to what they had. And let’s face it. men didn’t do badly under the Taliban, only woman and children were treated live cattle.
This is a male dominated society and always has been. They aren’t happy unless they are shooting at someone. Afganistan has been known as a country of bandits for 200 years. Another product of throwing different cultures together and calling it a country.
Didn’t you wath Fahrenheit 9-11? The whole point of th war was to build an oil pipeline for Unocal. So Mission Accomplished(unless they haven’t built the pipeline yet).