Obama's Afghanistan plan "non democratic", say US CongressmanâIn my view the [insurgentsâ] motivation for fighting the Afghan government, the Americans, and others is very locally based. And that is important to realize because it means in my view that the solutions are not just about a central government, they are also about working with and understanding local dimensions,â said Jones.
He told the subcommittee that the U.S. should think âmore concretely about bottom-up, rather than entirely top-downâ, which is where the U.S. has focused.
Another expert witness, Dr. Karin von Hippel, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], took a different stance by noting that although Afghanistan became a centralized state after the fall of the Taliban, there is nevertheless local involvement in politics.
âThey have a highly centralized form of government that may not be appropriate as you are saying to their very fragmented society, but thatâs what they have agreed on in the Bonn process, thatâs the constitution they agreed on. ...
