The war in Afghanistan is not being fought on the battlefield alone. If Iraq is to emerge as a strong and independent nation (hate the word decomracy) , the campaign for Afghanistan’s economy must stand on equal footing with the counterinsurgency campaign – they are one and the same.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U. N. John Bolton recently argued that religious fanatics, and their grievances, do not arise from poverty or deprivation. He postulated that many Taliban fighters join the insurgency simply to earn a living.
The war goes on and we are not seeing how the economic campaign is working.
The U.S. can continue its drone attacks on suspected Taliban hideouts and Al Qaeda operatives in the remote regions on the Afghan border, but more and more civilian casualties resulting from these attacks bring on the hatred by ordinary people to the extent that 60 per cent of them see the US as an enemy.
So, the war goes on but what are we doing to help the people earn a living?
