Word: nato
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...battle to own Musa Qala is expected to be intense, because of its value to both sides. For the Taliban, there's major symbolic value in being able to hold a town in a country ostensibly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is also at the center of the opium industry, whose revenues fuel the Taliban insurgency, and its location near the mountains north of Helmand make it a useful command center for an insurgent army. For all the same reasons, it's important to NATO to dislodge the Taliban...
...problem for NATO, however, is that Musa Qala may be a very visible Taliban position, but it's only one of hundreds - by some estimates, today there is a permanent Taliban presence in more than half of Afghanistan, and NATO, struggling to expand its troop strength from reluctant European nations, is not well placed to roll it back. The breadth of the territory across which the Taliban now operates across southern Afghanistan all the way up to the capital reflects the extent to which the uncommitted civilian population is hedging its bets. With the harsh winter coming, Musa Qala...
What concerns him and other elders of Hoeilaart is the influx in recent years of people who commute to jobs in Brussels, the polyglot capital of the European Union and headquarters of nato. Hoeilaart's newcomers are mostly French speakers, but also Brits, Americans and Germans. More than a third of Hoeilaart's 10,000 or so residents do not consider Dutch their mother tongue...
...position, fueling an increasingly assertive, and domestically popular, economic and political nationalism. Whether challenging the U.S. and its allies on Kosovo, opting out of previous arms agreements with Washington to protest U.S. missile defense plans, or using energy exports as a pressure-point against former Soviet territories inclining towards NATO, Putin has had few reservations about standing up to the West. And if the creeping authoritarianism of the Putin era is presented as the price of their renewed national pride and economic prospects, many Russians appear willing to accept the deal...
Dani's father had been forced to stay behind to care for his own bed-ridden father. Rumors swirled in the camp about NATO bombs falling on Ferizaj and Serbian troops rounding up all of its men. When he finally spoke of his father, Dani turned away as he started to cry. I tried to comfort him, but we both realized the best course was to get back to visiting the tents - and the hardships - of others. When it was time to leave the camp for the final time, I told Dani to keep studying English, and I promised...