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Blogs by Andy Parker
Can the US and Allies defeat the Taliban?.. 3/23/2009 6:49:09 AM
President Obama is sending 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan and will announce a new strategy that includes an exit plan...
The number one priority is to deal with the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but can the Taliban be defeated? Pakistan has just cancelled a celebration day, due to security reasons..the two recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai where 164 people lost their lives and on the Sri Lanka cricket team on Pakistan soil were done by young boys!
So are Al-Qaeda and the Taliban recruiting a new generation of child terrorists...
In northern Pakistan, the Taliban have destroyed hundreds of schools and won't allow girls to have an education, making them stay at home and wearing Burqa's in public.
The Taliban now run their own schools(Madrassa), targeting poor families, paying the parents money and giving them free shelter, while the boys are taught in the Madrassa the justification for suicide attacks.
They only teach recitation of the Quran, and given military training in how to use machine guns, grenades and rocket launchers.
The border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan also breed new recruits. These small villages have been bombarded by the US funded Pakistani army and also US missile strikes have flattend these small villages.
The innocent men, women and children are the ones who suffer, losing family members and forced to live in refugee camps. These camps now become recruitment areas for the Taliban, who prey on the orphans.
Even cities in Pakistan are seen as ripe recruitment areas, the slums of Karachi is rife with extortion and kidnapping to raise funds. The 1.5 million children living in these areas are prime targets, to motivate them to Jihad.
Once converted, the boys are viewed as tools to achieve Gods will, they see death as a blessing so who can defeat them?...
So is the war on the Taliban to eradicate them completely or enter into peaceful dialogue and try to re-educate their society and culture and rebuild villages with modern buildings?
My concern is if the Governments broker peaceful deals, these places where they control will lead to a strict Sharia Law in these areas where generations of women won't get the chance for education and be doctors, lawyers, teachers of the future. Or is that their fundamental right and culture and we have no right to interfere?
