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You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.

Ahmed Rashid

The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back into the workforce.
AHMED RASHID

Against Breaking Country Impose Keys Workforce
What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.
AHMED RASHID

Acute Everyone People Population Support Underestimate Unpopularity
All that has really happened is that Al Qaeda has escaped from Afghanistan come into Pakistan, got in touch with their contacts and friends.
AHMED RASHID

Contact Country Escape Friend Happen Really Touch
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

Aid Change Country Course Difficult Elite Energy Foreign Permanent Spoiled
The Pashtuns feel discriminated against by the Americans because they supported the Taliban and the war is still going on in their region with continued U.S. bombing.
AHMED RASHID

Country Discriminated Key Political Supported War
It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the political initiative?
AHMED RASHID

Army Better Country Fighting Government Mail Meditate Team
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 RASHID

Army Country Fight Force Rebel Recommendation Special
The West does not understand how to deal with states that no longer have any authority and are threatened by dissolution. Their efforts failed in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.
AHMED RASHID

Authority Country Deal Effort Longer State Threatened Understand
And China is not keen that the U.S. should be so close to its borders over a long period of time. Certainly, if the U.S. is going to be there for a long time, it’s going to exacerbate regional tensions.
AHMED RASHID

Border Certainly Country Going Long Period Tension Time
The biggest mistake Barack Obama could have made is to change quite a few things in his Afghanistan policy. He increased the number of troops and at the same time set the US withdrawal date to 2014.
AHMED RASHID

Change Country Few Made Mistake People Policy Quite Thing
The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools.
AHMED RASHID

Colonialism Country Kill People Rape School Tradition
We should remember that the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.
AHMED RASHID

Country Ethnic Group Largest Remember Support
I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. In any event, for countries like Afghanistan the formation of an entrepreneurial class is of vital importance.
AHMED RASHID

Company Confident Country Entrepreneurial Hedge Investment
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

Country Driven Greater Happen North People Resistance Saying Support Swiftly
We should have built a State in Afghanistan with an army and a police force first.
AHMED RASHID

Army Build Country First Force Police State
There’s a sense of desperation in Afghanistan because of the lack of funding and the fact that the U.S. only has a one-track military strategy. It doesn’t have an economic and political game plan.
AHMED RASHID

Country Desperation Funding Game Military Sense Track
Of course, many of them did support the Taliban. But you cannot equate all Pashtuns with the Taliban.
AHMED RASHID

All Country Course Support
America does not hold to the colonial tradition. America came, liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and al-Qaida, came to an arrangement with Hamid Karzai, wanted to organize elections as soon as possible and then withdraw.
AHMED RASHID

Allocate Army Bank Company Country Fall Fund Investment Percent Police
Pashtun nationalism is reasserting itself. Its political history spans several hundred years.
AHMED RASHID

Army History Hundred Nationalism Political Several Span Two Year
The Afghans can’t point and say, “Oh, the Americans built that road. They built that telecommunications facility.
AHMED RASHID

Built Country Facility Point Road Say Telecommunication
In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.
AHMED RASHID

Country Development Doomed Effort Failure Influencing Model Western World
There is no way the Americans are going to be able to carry out a full scale war against Iraq and at the same time maintain the same kind of pressure on the Al Qaeda network in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Philippines, and Pakistan, as well as in Europe.
AHMED RASHID

Able Against Carry Country Same Scale Time War Way
[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

Loyalty People Religious Something Title
Dysfunctional states like Afghanistan need business people who are deeply rooted in their country and invest in it. They can add stability.
AHMED RASHID

Country Dysfunctional Intervention Investment Military One People State
They were communists and had the same vision for Afghanistan that Stalin and Lenin had for the Soviet Union: Progress is communism plus electrification. And today? Today Kabul gets its electrical power from Uzbekistan, Herat from Iran and Jalalabad from Pakistan.
AHMED RASHID

Communist Country Electrical Power Progress Union Vision
You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.
AHMED RASHID

Countries Force Graveyard Importantly Intelligence Need Normal Resurrect Special
Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.
AHMED RASHID

Being Collapse Country Ensure Immediate Left

You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.

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You need intelligence and special forces. And, most importantly, you need to resurrect Afghanistan from what is literally the graveyard of countries and transform it into a normal country, which the Afghans want.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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