The Fight Against the Taliban in Afghanistan
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-08-12/fight-against-taliban-afghanistan
A U.S. Army Soldier patrols with Afghan soldiers to check on conditions in the village of Yawez in Wardak province, Afghanistan, Feb. 17, 2010
Sgt. Russell Gilchrest for the U.S. Army via Flickr
A U-N report finds the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan up over thirty percent this year - largely the result of Taliban attacks. The killing of ten foreign aid workers has some fearing the militant group is gaining strength. What a strengthening Taliban means for the U-S mission in Afghanistan.
Guests
Ambassador James Dobbins
director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, and former special envoy to Afghanistan.
Gayle Lemmon
Deputy Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served as a journalist for nearly ten years covering presidential politics as a producer with the ABC News Political Unit and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Her upcoming book, 'The Dressmaker of Khair Khana,' is due out March 2011.
Col. Douglas Macgregor
U.S. Army-Retired, decorated combat veteran, senior vice president at Potomac League, LLC, and author of "Warrior's Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting."
Comments
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Diane,
So glad to have you back! Your associates did a terrific job in your absence, but there's only one you! It's comforting to hear your voice again.
Hello Diane
This idea is not the silver bullet and may sound a little elementry but could be a part of developing a total solution for Afghanistan. The male dominated society of Afghan hasn't and will never change and never have been able to do the job...
Why not start training and arming the Afghan WOMEN, start developing their own military & policing division mentored and protected by US and NATO Forces. I'm confident these resilient women would be able to change Afghanistan once and for all... Time is certainly not an issue..
CT
It is important for Americans to know what women can be subjected to in Afghanistan and other places with similar forms of governance, however Americans should hear pure stories, from the women themselves. Did the woman on the front of Time magazine, choose how she would present herself in the cover photograph (her clothes, her position, her expression)? If she didn't, does it accurately depict her feelings, religiosity, experience?
Osama bin Laden is gone and Al-Quaeda leadership in a quandary, so why can't America declare "mission accomplished" in Afghanistan and withdraw our armed forces? In place of bullets, send them ideas. The Taliban's greatest fear is western ideas and freedoms. Their raison d'etre being domination of women, the greatest weapon against their medieval fundamentalism is feminine liberation. In place of war, why don't we post online translations of classic works from the liberation movement of the 'Sixties, and use Voice of America and Facebook and the internet to start a woman's movement in the Arab/Persian world? The Taliban have always been about "keeping women in their place," but all women everywhere have the power to fight back. Call it the "no-sex-without-borders" movement (seriously, denying sex to husbands is a major weapon in the fight for equality). If we jump-start a nonviolent women's war of ideas in the Middle East, instead of this costly and endless armed conflict, in two decades the Taliban and their brothers in arms will have seen the light and bin Laden will at last have been defeated.