# Can reintegration of Taliban soldiers work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-reintegration-of-taliban-soldiers-work/540583 "2010-05-24T16:27:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-reintegration-of-taliban-soldiers-work/540583/21 "2010-05-28T23:08:50Z")
Okay, as a PoliSci student, I firmly believe in _not_ making grand pronouncements on subjects about which you know jack shit. Which makes me a hypocrite for saying this: This thread gets written about once a month on the SDMB. And I hate it every time, because it’s always Sam Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” versus George Bush’s “We will bring democracy to the Middle East” — a crass generalization, I know. But I am highly dubious about the claim that Afghanis don’t understand democracy (it’s not some grand religion) or that they have no interest in this whole Westernism thing (Afghanistan wasn’t a religiously conservative country until quite recently, IIRC.) At the same time, convincing everybody that they can have a place in the new regime and be satisfied isn’t exactly an easy task. The game of Liberation™ is one in which there are losers, not just winners. At any rate, the US is pretty well stuck there for the moment. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-reintegration-of-taliban-soldiers-work/540583/22 "2010-05-28T23:30:06Z")
Oh, and just for the record, integrating some Taliban back into the army is, at least in theory, a very good idea, for all the reasons stated above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-reintegration-of-taliban-soldiers-work/540583.md?page=1)