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Afghanistan

Afghan Poll: We don’t Like Taliban but will Gladly Talk with Them

Juan Cole 11/11/2010

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A summer, 2010, poll done in Afghanistan by the San Francisco-based Asian Foundation, the results of which have just been released, shows:

More and more Afghans, now the vast majority, say they have no sympathy with the insurgent groups fighting NATO and the Karzai government;

Most people support programs to lure Taliban and other fighters away from their role as guerrillas by offering them other economic opportunities in life;

Most Afghans support negotiations with the militants.

So the Afghan public doesn’t like them, wants to pull the plug on them, but is still willing to find a resolution through dialogue and compromise.

It is a pretty mature set of attitudes for a country that has been through decades of hell.

Unfortunately, it is guns, drugs, organization and C4 explosives that will be decisive, not opinion polls.

The CBC has more analysis.

Filed Under: Afghanistan

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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