Afghan War: The state of Popular Support on the ground

**SUMMARY ONLY**
Estimates say that the Taliban control perhaps half a dozen provinces in the south – with popular support. It also proves that there is no popular support for the US occupation – only the opportunist Karzai and the former warlords support this war.

CIVILIANS SPEAK
“The difference between when the Taliban were in government and now is the same as the difference between land and sky. ... At that time it had meaning, now it is nothing.'”

A tribal elder: “Yes, we want the Taliban back. OK, they had some negative points, but they had a lot more positive points than the Karzai government.”

“I think life under the Taliban was very good. If we did not have a full stomach, we could at least get some food and go to sleep. If we went out somewhere, there were no problems. How about now?”

“When the Taliban were here, I escaped to the border with Iran, but I was never worried about my family. Every single minute of the last three years I have been very worried. Maybe tonight the Americans will come to my house, molest my wife and children and arrest me.”

EXPERTS SPEAK
Gen. David Richards, a British officer:
“They [Afghans] will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting”

Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission:
“The warlords should never have been allowed to run for parliament – they were technically supposed to be disqualified because of their private militias. But now that they are back in power, the government is headed for disaster ... The international community should help an Afghan-led effort to try these men for war crimes and purge them from the Parliament. The US is responsible for allowing them to come back into power.”
“The Taliban were initially welcomed into Afghanistan in 1996 by war-weary Afghans who were promised an end to the chaos and violence of the US-backed jihadis. Afghans were so desperate for peace, they accepted the word of anyone who promised it to them. Once they realized how oppressive the Taliban was, they changed their mind.
Today, it's a similar situation. The US/NATO and the Northern Alliance warlords are so violent that Afghans will accept any alternative. It's a matter of choosing the least of all evils.”

Barnett Rubin:
many Afghans are growing frustrated with the pace of reconstruction and stabilization: “They're not at all happy. Support for both the international presence and the government has plummeted in the past year or so.”

Rory Stewart:
to say that “all Afghans want to live in a liberal democratic state is inaccurate and misleading.”

Governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province:
“[The insurgency] is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, a sort of liberation war against coalition forces.”