The Americans make their usual recommendations. They want to train the army for the fight with the rebels. US special forces are already in Mali.
AHMED RASHIDThey built that electricity powerhouse,” because nothing has been built so far.
More Ahmed Rashid Quotes
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I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliban.
AHMED RASHID -
If Afghan soldiers continue to kill American soldiers as is happening these days, it can hardly be assumed that they will stay in Afghanistan in the long term. And what role are they to play?
AHMED RASHID -
Russia is now becoming increasingly nervous about a more permanent U.S. presence in Central Asia.
AHMED RASHID -
But all development programs of the United States and the European countries unfortunately exclude the private sector, which could make investments based on profitability.
AHMED RASHID -
[Mullah Omar] gave himself this religious title. So it was something that all those people there who swore an oath of loyalty to him as a religious leader could not easily get rid of.
AHMED RASHID -
We should have built a State in Afghanistan with an army and a police force first.
AHMED RASHID -
We never had reports of Mullah Omar living luxuriously or making money in large quantities or anything like that.
AHMED RASHID -
The United States only knows one form of intervention and that is the military one. Everything depends on drawn weapons. We should, however, develop a wider scope of action. And we should learn to be patient.
AHMED RASHID -
In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.
AHMED RASHID -
This year we watched the collapse of Mali, a consequence of the Libyan civil war. The south of Libya and Mali, and Niger too, are well on the way to becoming a no-man’s land. After 9/11,
AHMED RASHID -
The Bush administration thought that once there is a democracy, everything else will fall into place. If today you speak to the architects of the 2001 Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, they will tell you that instead of being fixated on elections.
AHMED RASHID -
People like myself were saying the Taliban would be driven out very swiftly from the north of Afghanistan, but given that their main support base was in the Pashtun belt, there would be greater resistance there. That didn’t happen.
AHMED RASHID -
Despite all the dire predictions made in 2001, the Afghans have given the international community, its aid workers and soldiers a large window of opportunity to repair the damage done by 25 years of war.
AHMED RASHID -
What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.
AHMED RASHID -
Our Pakistan elites are spoiled by permanent foreign aid and therefore find it difficult to change course. Pakistan needs someone who stands up and says: Fundamentalism is bad, capitalism is good.
AHMED RASHID