CNN's Christiana Amanpour Interviews Admiral Mike Mullen: We need the military, and more

[Turborama]

Christiane Amanpour
CNN Chief International Correspondent

I talked with Admiral Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about how to handle the pirates off the coast of Somalia, how to handle an unstable nuclear Pakistan, and much more.

But what he said about Afghanistan intrigued me most. It wasn’t about the war. It was about quality of life.

As we talked at the Pentagon, Chairman Mullen told me, the terribly deep problems fracturing Afghanistan, and indeed Pakistan, won’t be solved by the military alone.

You have to give people some reason to hope, and to take the risk of rejecting the militants. You have to give them a chance at a decent life — not a grand life, but a decent life – and an economic alternative.

And that means you have to give them an opportunity for development – of their communities, businesses, schools – some stability.

The military can help, Chairman Mullen told me, but the military can’t do it alone.

That sounds like nation-building. People don’t like the sound of that. Nor the cost. Nor how long that could take.

But to solve a problem that has spread into the U.S. — costing the lives of troops and billions of dollars already — the U.S. government and people may have to listen to advice from its most senior military officials.

From: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/15/we-need-the-military-and-more/

Video of interview: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/04/15/ac.mullen.on.pirates.cnn

[rfranklin]

1. Aren't we helping with heroin consumption?

What other industry do they have besides the opium trade?