Bartering girls into marriage to pay off opium debts has become more prevalent in recent years in Afghanistan. Farmers, middlemen in the drug trade, drug couriers, and even some drug lords themselves sell their daughters to more powerful traffickers and smugglers — and very little is being done to combat the injustice.
How to Talk to the Taliban
The new Taliban office in Qatar could open the door for negotiation and bring the war in Afghanistan to a peaceful end. Despite the significant risks, it would still be better to move forward cautiously, rather than not engage at all. Full article: http://fam.ag/wgzjbf
The Silk Road Through Afghanistan | The Country’s Economic Future Lies in its Region
As international partners gather in Bonn to plan a withdrawal after 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. deputy secretary of state makes a case for an economic foundation for the country’s future. Read full article.
The September/October 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs is now online and on newsstands.
In this issue:
William McCants, an analyst at CNA’s Center for Strategic Studies, writes that, ten years after 9/11, the global jihadist movement is in crisis.
Melvyn Leffler, Edward Stettinius professor of history at the University of Virginia, looks back on U.S. President George W. Bush’s foreign policy after 9/11 and finds that it is not as novel as is generally believed.
David Rodriguez, a commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, argues that Afghans will be ready to take over their own security by 2014.
Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, shows that China’s global economic dominance will be far greater and come about far sooner than most realize.
Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, urges the United States to get real about what can — and cannot — be done to end its 40-year-long drug war.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, explains that the Palestinian push for UN recognition is an attempt to level the playing field during future peace negotiations.
Click here to read these and other articles. Subscribe now for instant access to this issue and more than 50 years of archives online.
Why the U.S. Should Raise Taxes—Just As it Has in Previous Conflicts
Most Americans have made no sacrifices at all for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The burden should be shared. It’s long past time for Congress to enact a wartime tax, something it’s done in almost every war in the past, says James Wright. Read more here.
Debating Unity of Command in Afghanistan and Beyond
The U.S. mission in Afghanistan suffers from a lack of common objectives among U.S. agencies, argue Randy George and Dante Paradiso. What the war needs is a single commander to unite civilian and military efforts, they write. Not so, replies James Dobbins: Washington should be loath to move away from its tradition of civilian control of the armed forces. Read the debate here.
Washington should accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of Afghanistan’s south and east.
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