It's not the war on terror...i's the war on poverty

A British based charity organization completed a poll of the cause of violence in Afghanistan is...poverty. The taliban ranked third on the poll.

Perhaps this is why the war is taking so long, we've been fighting the wrong enemy. While we have been killing the taliban we really should have been throwing more money at Afghanistan to combat poverty.

From Voice of America

A Britain-based charity has found a majority of Afghans see poverty and unemployment as the major cause of conflict in their country. According to the report, interference by neighboring countries was fourth in the tally of factors.

Oxfam and a group of Afghan organizations interviewed more than 700 Afghans.

After poverty, the Afghans blamed government weakness and corruption as the second most important factor behind fighting. The Taliban came third, followed by interference by neighboring countries.[...]

"At the same time, the international community and the major donors - particularly the United States actually, being by far the largest donor - have got a responsibility, I think, to use aid resources much more effectively," he said. "You can see that over the years there has not been a good policy of building up the Afghan institutions capacity to deliver basic services to people."