It's beyond poppies

FEATURE: "How the Taliban Thrives: It isn't just drugs," by Aryn Baker, Time, 14 August 2009.

What gives an insurgency legs is also what limits its ideological appeal and thus spread. After a while, nobody can remember what they're fighting for; they just know they don't know how to do anything else and that the money's pretty good.

Everybody gets hit in Afghanistan: aid projects, companies, the government, anybody who moves anything. All pay "taxes" to the Taliban in one form or another.

Telling:

In fact, protection payments are so widespread that one contractor I interviewed responded incredulously to questions about how the system worked. "You must be the only person in Afghanistan who doesn't know this is going on," he said.

This is why pouring more money in will have little effect. It sure won't cure the Afghan government's corruption.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

This is nothing new. Tribalism plus Jihad based Islamic schools means each generation has too many uneducated youth with limited job skills.

Iraq has been better on this for some time than Afghanistan.

The irony is that Mohammed was partly inspired to start and promote his new religion to counter the tribal warrior groups that constantly fought each other over toll road 'tax' points on his region of Silk Road. They were excessive and chaotic causing merchants to move to alternate routings. He inspired the idea of sharing resources and a regional 'we're all in this together under one god' approach.

The original Taliban mission and success was motivated by public desire to end tribal leader and government abuses of public.

[Javaid Akhtar]

Religious groupings are the next step up on the ladder for Tribal societies.Thats why for Somalia /Afghanistan to progress..they need a period of quiet developement under a religious hierachy before they could create the stability to re-create a transformational merchant /industrial caste.They seem to be just lingering on the tribal step of the ladder and I don't see development or strength to withstand outside influence under a tribal structure ..which they are still under.