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Anand Gopal: Who Are the Taliban?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — This piece is a joint project of TomDispatch.com and the Nation Magazine, where a shorter version appears in print. If there is an exact location marking the West's failures in Afghanistan, it is the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension, blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul's gritty, low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley ...

The Pakistan Link to Mumbai; Rashid: It was a Diversionary Tactic
Informed Comment — The Times of India worries that fundamentalist violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan are spilling over into India: 'In Pakistan, deaths in bomb blasts and other fidayeen attacks and actions of security forces have increased almost 10 times in the last four years from 648 in 2005 to 6,310 in 2008, till November-end . . . According to the last report by the UN secretary-general, submitted in September this year, 1445 civilians had been killed in the first eight months of 2008. Of these about 800 were killed by the Taliban and the rest by Nato troops. In 2007, the death toll was 1,633, while in 2006 it was 929. . . What has all this got to do ...

Who Are the Taliban?
Antiwar.com Original — ... post for TomDispatch, an on-the-ground look at who the Taliban – "a slippery movement that morphs from district to district" – really are. This timely piece represents a joint project of TomDispatch.com and the Nation Magazine , where a shorter version appears in print. Tom Who Are the Taliban? The Afghan War Deciphered By Anand Gopal [This piece is a joint project of TomDispatch.com and the ...

This is How I End Up Getting Sucked In
Obsidian Wings — by Eric Martin Anand Gopal has an informative piece on the make-up of the "Taliban" movement in Afghanistan.  The piece reinforces a few concepts that should inform our future policy vis-a-vis Afghanistan: First, the Karzai government lacks a popular mandate and, in general, it is unrealistic to believe that the United ...