Rory Stewart about Life Conditions in Afghanistan

Forewarded from Ben Levi, founder of SDi Yahoo list:

Interview with Rory Stewart about Afghanistan

Albert

Re: Rory Stewart about Life Conditions in Afghanistan

One more example from Ben. It shows what it takes to get real about and in Afghanistan:

“A friend of mine recently travelled to Afghanistan with a group of womento learn first-hand about what people were thinking there. You can find her blog here: http://www.saradavidson.com/archive-af.html

Her recent blog spoke about meeting with a Canadian woman who’d been working in the south of Afghanistan for years with the farmers there,and one thing she spoke about reinforced what Don’s been saying foryears about the “Red bulge”, but when you toss in Muslim religion intoit, you get ideal conditions for terrorism recruiting. One obvious solution for Afghanistan and everywhere Red is out of control is to spend $ to find these young men a job of any kind, and a wife. Here’swhat this woman said:

[We]meet with Norine MacDonald, a Canadian who's worked in the south [ofAfghanistan] for years.  Norine is 39, blonde and gutsy.  She carries a gun and looks like a model in Kabul, but in the south she dresses likean Afghan boy because women aren't seen on the street.

Norine directs theMercator Fund, which works with farmers in the south who, she says,”are all in business with the Taliban.”  Mercator is encouraging them to grow poppies for medicine.  “You can't get morphine in this country or in Africa.  The World Health Organization calls it a global pain crisis,” Norine says.  “It's a simple process to convert raw opium tomorphine.  The farmers could start with the harvest next spring.  Itwill make them legitimate and solve a world problem.”

Her group wants to intervene with young men before they're recruited by the Taliban.  She says there's a bulge in the population of males between 15 and 25. “They're not sexually active because Islam forbids sex beforemarriage, and they don't have money for a wedding.  They have no sex,no job, and they're angry.”
    
Imagine, she says, if in the U.S., all the males between 15 and 25 hadno sex and no job.  “What kind of violence and chaos might erupt?”  Her organization wants to give the young men cash to get married, an allowance to build their own place – “a love shack” – and job training.  “It's harder to recruit a married man as a suicide bomber when he has a decent job and a home.”