I just thought I'd throw this out on a snowy day in New England, since we know most of the Taliban, in the words of former commander of US forces in Afghanistan General Karl Eikenberry, "is drawn from the ranks of unemployed men looking for wages to support their families." Col. Tom Collins, a Pentagon spokesman, puts it at a "vast majority," and Joe Biden put out a number of 70%.
Young Afghan men, like young American men, and women, have to eat and feed their families, and when unemployment is 40% like it is an A'stan, you take what you can get. IRIN News agency reported this last March:
"A 25-year-old man we will call Shakir has told IRIN he rues rejecting an offer of "work" from a Taliban agent whereby he would get 500 Afghanis (about US$10) a day for carrying out attacks on government offices in Farah Province, southwestern Afghanistan. Those who accepted the offer are better off, he thinks. "People are jobless,...
hungry and destitute so they agree to do anything for a small payment," he told IRIN, refusing to give his name for fear the insurgents would kill him."
So the question is for soldiers and former soldiers, if there are many out there on this site who have joined, say in the last 10 years: did economic considerations play a large part in your decision to join the military? College money? We know the civilian job situation is as bad as it has been in recent and even not-so-recent history, and I can't imagine what it's like coming out of high school or college. Please state your unit and deployment dates (if have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan) if you would like to participate. Are we throwing one pool of unemployed young men against another?