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The Taliban's Long War

Things aren't going well in Afghanistan - a fact even the foreign powers in the country acknowledge. The Taliban has not been routed and seems to be making "gains" in the worn-torn country. Now military action is spreading into Pakistan, an ally of the West - although a questionable ally.

From FP [Foreign Policy]:

"With the Taliban growing fiercer by the day, Dexter Filkins, a grizzled war correspondent for the New York Times and author of The Forever War, shares his tales from tribal Pakistan and explains why it may be too late to apply the lessons of Iraq.

Foreign Policy: You’ve done a lot of reporting recently on the tribal areas of Pakistan. Tell us a little bit about what a visitor might see there. How openly do the Taliban control the area?

Dexter Filkins: It looks like the moon: it’s treeless; it’s bleak; it’s mountainous. There are very few roads. There’s almost no evidence of any government presence—no schools, no electrical lines. You have a literacy rate of about 20 percent. It’s as backwards a place as you’re going to find.

The Taliban control the whole place as far as I can tell. I went into Khyber, one of the seven tribal areas, and [the Taliban] were the only effective authority in those areas at all. They controlled everything."

Continue reading the Q & A here.

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