The Taliban's Lure in Afghanistan

Afghan's corruption-laden government is not delivering on promises of security or justice, and disillusioned Afghans are reluctantly turning to the Taliban as a tolerable alternative.

(Caroline Wadhams, Senior Policy Analyst for National Security): There are a number of different reasons why people join the Taliban. People who are looking for a paycheck, coerced, disillusionted.

One main cause of this disillusionment is the corruption that plagues the Karzai administration.

(Wadhams): Afghans see their government as predatory, as abusive, as they do the Taliban. And so many go to the Taliban because it's seen as offering more protection and more justice.

Afghans are supporting the Taliban reluctantly. Most would prefer a functioning government to the Taliban's brutal rule.

(Wadhams): Through better governance you can win over many of the Afghans. And that may in fact reduce recruitment.

President Obama called for good governance in Afghanistan in the wake of a fraught Afghan election cycle.

(President Obama): This has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter based on improved governance, a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption.

But the Afghan people are willing to overlook perceived foreign involvement if the Karzai government delivers on promises of low corruption and improved security and justice.

(Wadhams): The majority of the people want the foreign forces to stay. They want Karzai to succeed. People don't want the Taliban back.