Originally posted by Toramana
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These men are orchestrators of parties and fuedalists to the extreme. They limit a rural driven meritocracy to emerge.
Zia is an outsider and I could care less about him. He is in his tomb and cannot bother anyone today except in memory.
Matthew Hoh, and American sums up my inability to accept these severely disturbed individuals as capable leaders:
"History tells a different story. The conflict is very complex, multi-dimensional and goes back three decades. In 2001–02 we installed a government in Kabul headed by Karzai. In doing this, we backed one side in a long civil war—the more progressive-secular and urban camp, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and some Pashtuns and those who live in the north and west. But it excluded one-third of Afghans, the rural, religious, traditional camp, who are Pashtuns in the south and east—which include the Taliban—whose forerunners we backed in 1980s, against the Soviets.
So we create a government that rewards one side and excludes the other. So there are cracks in the political order we created. This gets much worse in 2005 or 2006, when we decided extend the government’s power into southern and eastern Pashtun areas. At the same time, various elements of the Taliban and other insurgent factions had strengthened and returned into parts of Afghanistan.The push went badly, since villagers rebelled, turning to the Taliban to get rid of the outsiders. And so the cycle began. We add more troops, which strengthens the Taliban and weakens support for the government. Suicide attacks, IEDs, military and civilian dead or wounded—all rise commensuratelywith eachincrease in foreign troop or Afghan government presence. We misunderstand many ofthecauses of support for the Taliban. They didn’t wear sandwich boards or hand out pamphlets to win people. They are the Pashtuns. Most don’t want to rule the country. They just want to get rid of the occupiers."

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