On September 20th, 2001, President Bush demanded the Taliban government to “close the terrorist training camps and hand over leaders of the al-Qaida network.” A few weeks later, President Bush updated the nation, “None of these demands were met. And now, the Taliban will pay a price.
Another insightful commentary, thank you. Another possibility for nation building is for a leader to emerge internally and set the course. After the Turks chased out the British and Greeks, Gamel Mustafa, who became Ataturk, modernized and secularized Turkey in very spectacular fashion. Could such a leader emerge in Afghanistan? Will the Taliban produce a modernizer, as Turkey did? With the assassination of Massoud, did they lose their only hope? Ataturk was very fierce that Turks were NOT Arabs, who he saw as uneducated, lazy, backward thinking and under the thumb of theocracy. This is a message for today.
Another insightful commentary, thank you. Another possibility for nation building is for a leader to emerge internally and set the course. After the Turks chased out the British and Greeks, Gamel Mustafa, who became Ataturk, modernized and secularized Turkey in very spectacular fashion. Could such a leader emerge in Afghanistan? Will the Taliban produce a modernizer, as Turkey did? With the assassination of Massoud, did they lose their only hope? Ataturk was very fierce that Turks were NOT Arabs, who he saw as uneducated, lazy, backward thinking and under the thumb of theocracy. This is a message for today.