In Taliban heartland, coalition's made little headway after 8 years

[laststeamtrain]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

In Taliban heartland, coalition's made little headway after 8 years
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers Thu Aug 13, 4:13 pm ET

ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Two miles from the gates of this isolated Canadian forward military base in southern Afghanistan is Sangsar, where the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam was born.

A few miles farther east is a school in Siah Choy where students learn to build roadside bombs for passing U.S. and Afghan troops or the farmers who welcome them. In Nakhonay, about six miles farther east, the Taliban store thousands of weapons to distribute in the region.

This fertile part of southern Afghanistan is the front line of the war between the American-led coalition and the Taliban , but neither the U.S. nor its coalition partners have any troops stationed in these villages. The Taliban's grip here is so strong that Afghan government leaders can't live in their own villages, so the farmers turn to the militants to settle local disputes. When Afghans go to the polls next Thursday to pick a president, no one here will vote because the Taliban have ordered them to stay home.

The coalition's precarious position in Kandahar province after nearly eight years of a war that's claimed more than 775 American lives is a warning that the new U.S. campaign to subdue the Taliban in the Islamists' heartland will be, at best, an uphill struggle.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090813/wl_mcclatchy/3291310

[billyoc]

1. Put a '1' in front of that '8', then put a '2' in front of it. Voila! You're a fortune teller.

[santamargarita]

2. We went through our own 8 years of hell...

and still have the American Teabag Taliban to deal with.

[davepc]

3. Didn't the British already travel down this road 150 years ago?

[Octafish]

4. Weird how Brzezinski ended up 'helping' Obama.

The brains behind the Great Game has bamboozled our nation into believing that Afghanistan can be won.

Pilger pegs the hypocrisy: The Great Charade.

What Afghanistan needs are: water, food, shelter, jobs, hospitals and real schools.

Gee. That sounds A LOT like what's needed by Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. But...but...Gates and the brilliant generals can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"When yer wounded and lying on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women are coming to cut up the remains,
Just roll on yer rifle and blow out yer brains,
And, go to yer Gawd like a soldier."

Rudyard Kipling