People in our lives - Part 1

In life we come across different kind of people some good, some bad and some so so. I would like to divide these people into categories. First and foremost is family, one's close family. These are the people which brings us to the world, our parents, help us develop our character which sometimes lasts all our life. Our siblings, form part of the family group, they are someone with whom we grow up with, with whom we may fight a lot but stay very close to all our lives. A second group of people is relatives. They are someone we don't choose, some of them are very influencial in our lives but some are pain in the a**. Since even though we don't like them we have to keep up with them. Another group is our friends. these are the group of people we choose. This group of people are someone we grow close to since we choose them on common interests, someone we like to spend time with. A handful of them stay with us all our life while there are some with whom we spend a short period of time. And there are people whom we cannot categorise, people like our teachers, strangers we met, people with whom we have to deal with once in a while like ones car mechanic, the bank teller, some office colleagues etc.
Of all these categories, there is one category which is the most unpredicatable and too much to handle. This is the group of relatives. Relatives are a wierd group of people, it includes grand parents who shower you with love and gifts and just expect love in return. They are the coolest since they fulfil all your requirements which parents don't want to give. And then there is some distinct cousin or uncle or aunt who just want to drop by ones place and be the most annoying person to deal with. They might ask for financial help with or without assurances of returning the favor or just make ones life miserable by just being around.

Return of the Taliban

Many of us has seen how the 9/11 attacks on the US changed the defination of "terrorists" for ever. In response to the terrorist attacks US "invaded " Afghanistan to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy the Taleban forces and restore democracy.
It has been 5 years since the invasion and US has been able to put in a democratic government in Afghanistan but the government is so weak that it cannot stand on its own. It needs tremendous international support.
What prompted me to write on this topic was a PBS Frontline program by Martin Smith telecasted on 3rd October 2006 and the video is available on the PBS website (click on the blog link). The episode or more so a documentary shows the history of Taleban and how after so many years neither US nor any other international forces have been unable to eliminate it completely. The problem lies with the Northern tribal parts of Pakistan which share the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan government has totally no control over these areas and during the 2001 Afghanistan invasion by the US many Taleban leaders and soldiers found a safe heaven in these tribal areas. Now Taleban have gathered forces and are within 100 miles of Kabul to gain control of the country. But the possibility of them gaining power in Kabul is very remote since the international forces will not let this happen as it will be a big defeat to all the world nations.
So in this whole history episode where was the problem for not being able to defeat Taleban. Should Pakistan have not allowed the Taleban leaders to enter its geographical borders ? Should they have co-operated more with the US on the war of terror ? As we all know, world politics is not very straight forward.
Firstly, uptil 2001 Pakistan helped create Taleban and bring them in power in Afghanistan. US was more than happy with Taleban because it helped destroy the Soviet in the late '80 thus leaving US as the unchallenged superpower in the world. But suddenly after Sept 11, 2001 things changed and Pakistan was asked to not only not support Taleban but also help the US in destroying it. This is easily said than done. Since the local people don't understand the details of world politics. For them America was the enemy trying to kill their friends "the Taleban". So they provided all the help and support to these Taleban leaders and soldiers.
So do we see an end to this war on terror or is it just going to go on.
It is a very open ended question and only time will tell.