Steve Coll is always a must-read on Afpak and he sounds a cautionary note on Afghanistan and polling. (See my post from this morning.) Citing a new Oxfam poll, Coll observes that its findings, “like all polling in very poor developing societies, should be received as suggestive, not scientific.”
Still, the Oxfam numbers indicate that Afghans regard the Taliban as a bigger problem — a far bigger problem — than the presence of international forces. The notion that the U.S. military is driving Afghans into the arms of the Taliban is not borne out by this polling.
(One category of blame in the Oxfam poll is listed cryptically as “other countries,” which I take to be code for Pakistan.)
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