Check out the following illustrative excerpts from the article by Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins, writing in the December 2009 issue of Harper's. http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082754
On the latest United Nations Department of Safety and Security map, which color-codes Afghanistan to denote levels of risk for U.N. operations, we were in a tiny island of "high orange surrounded by a wide sea of "extreme red. The orange island is Spin Boldak and the road to Kandahar city; the red sea stretches across most of the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, and Uruzgan, and farther to the southeast.
This schema is illustrative of four striking facts.
First and foremost, it depicts how a ferocious and increasingly sophisticated insurgency "the "neo-Taliban, as many now call them "has spread across the predominantly Pashtun south and southeast of Afghanistan.
Second, that red area we were in also corresponds with the indefinite deployment of 20,000 additional U.S. soldiers, sent here during the months leading up to the eighth anniversary of the 2001 invasion, in October. Intended to bolster the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a patchwork of different nations, the increase was a belated recognition of just how badly the country has fared after years of neglect and mismanagement.
Third, all the red regions on the UNDSS map serve as a rough approximation of the areas with opium under cultivation, representing a billion-dollar industry whose tentacles grip both the neo-Taliban and the fledgling Afghan state, from foot soldier to government minister.
And last, our little island of "high orange in the sea of "extreme red is Colonel Razik's private domain.
Together, these four facts "the intensifying insurgency, the massive deployment of international troops and assistance, the opium, and Razik's relatively secure territory "go a long way toward explaining why an uneducated thirty-year-old warlord remains firmly entrenched as an ISAF ally and drug trafficker at a crucial border crossing like Spin Boldak.
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