Why people think the taliban is stronger...
Bill, first of all, I personally dont think the Taliban are stronger. I think their strength has always depended on Pakistani support (providing the skills they lacked and an international long term view) and a particular set of favorable circumstances and without that support, and in today's changed circumstances, they cannot conquer or hold afghanistan EVEN IF foriegn forces withdraw.
About why "many people" think the taliban is going to win (stronger was perhaps the wrong word), I think its as you said: people expect they will out-endure the US forces. The US has less of a permanent interest in Afghanistan and will eventually say 'f..k it" and leave after one last burst of bombing. The Jihadis in Pakistan (and they are the ones with international ambitions, the taliban themselves would be just a rural pakhtun phenomenon without their input) take a very long view of things and in their own opinion, they will always have more people willing to die than the US or any other infidel power. Once the US leaves, US agents like Zardari and the ANP will leave on the next plane (if they are lucky) and things will be back to status quo ante. I personally think they are wrong because they overestimate their own strength and unity and underestimate how much resistance there will be. Mostly, I think they overestimate their own unity. The army will not have the region back in their grip like they imagine and the jihadis will not have the army back in their grip like they used to. Instead, the US would leave behind an endless and extremely messy civil war in which Jihadi victory is by no means assured. Their extreme ruthlessness and clarity of purpose is not matched by any deep organizational unity. THEY will kill each other more efficiently than any infidel could (and the infidels will help). And their ideology has absolutely no section about how to be a modern state.....that part was a gift of the British raj and this time around it will depart with the infidels. But that is another story.
Some of the fence sitters have an idea about the mess that would result if the US leaves, but again, they are not sure the US can stick around, so mess or not, they have to place their bets on what will follow. On the other hand, if the US looks like it has a winning plan, then everyone else will start calculating differently. btw, "winning plan" does not mean plan to make a deal with the taliban and scoot. In that case, everyone knows who will be cutting heads next year in Kabul stadium and plans accordingly.
I concur, and it is a damn shame!
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The Taliban can be defeated, but their just isn't the Political will to commit the resources necessary to do it. That's the problem. There isn't even the political will to try and close the boarder with Pakistan.
The British experience in Malayia did not happen in a few years.
We are up against essentially a non-existant society in Afghanistan, weaker even than the original US Articles of Confederation that governed while the US Revolutionary War dragged on due to lack of the strongest support needed but not then possible from the original Congress in Philadelphia.
I still think a return to the monarchy for Afghainsitan, with tribal jiirgas working under same is more likely to work...although a modified weak Parliamentary system able to veto or check and balance a King might work, too?
Yon and Grey - "light and smoke"
Michael Yon has been embedded with UK troops in Sangin, for fiev weeks and has written an excellent first-hand account: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bad-medicine.htm Yon is now en route to embed with USMC.
For murky reasons his embed has ended and neither side agrees why.
Stephen Grey, a UK journalist, has written a wide ranging article on the campaigning and whether the local strategy is correct: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/wp...and/index.html
davidbfpo
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Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Concur 100%, but I remain doubtful that cold logic will override passion in our national decision making strategy. You can't win elections based on the merit of your sound ideas, you have to drum up emotions and let the media fan the flames. When it gets difficult to maintan the emotional high about a particular course of action, then the counter movement whips into action and gradually builds momentum. We should have listened to George Washington and avoided the party system, it is most irrational system for governing ever designed next to communism.
Please explain why "many" people think the Taliban is the stronger team? This somehow escapes the limits of my admittedly western bias towards relative combat power. Do people really see the Taliban as the stronger team or the team with the most endurance? Have the Taliban won any fights against coalition forces? I actually understand what you're writing, but please further explain what you mean by stronger team.
Bill, when you get a chance send me an email. I'd like to get your thoughts on a concept. It's just powerpoint, so there is some "reading between the lines" required, but I know you'll be able to keep the trail.
Sarah Chayes commented on this in her book
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Concur 100%, but I remain doubtful that cold logic will override passion in our national decision making strategy. You can't win elections based on the merit of your sound ideas, you have to drum up emotions and let the media fan the flames. When it gets difficult to maintain the emotional high about a particular course of action, then the counter movement whips into action and gradually builds momentum. We should have listened to George Washington and avoided the party system, it is most irrational system for governing ever designed next to communism.
Please explain why "many" people think the Taliban is the stronger team? This somehow escapes the limits of my admittedly western bias towards relative combat power. Do people really see the Taliban as the stronger team or the team with the most endurance? Have the Taliban won any fights against coalition forces? I actually understand what you're writing, but please further explain what you mean by stronger team.
If you get a chance, read Sarah's "Punishment of Virtue," there are some great insights there from a non-military perspective of someone who spent a great deal of time within the populace and working the problem; in fact as I listened to the CD during my commute I was struck that this is a perspective that our SF guys should be bringing as well.
But, with growing frustration with the Karzai government's failure to deal with those aspects of governance that they found the most intolerable (i.e., poor governance) that they had no recourse to address through the men he allowed to stay in official positions, which the exploited for their own gain; many were beginning to yearn for the "good old days" of when the Taliban were in power. For all their faults, there was much that was good as well.
Few want the Taliban in power; but most want things to be better than they are now. It provides a crack in the social will for the Taliban to pry on. And remember, in a Taliban ran state there will be no more foreign military presence; and we cannot underestimate how powerful of a message that must be given the history of these people.
For the US we should remember that we did not go to AFG to wage war on the Taliban, if they would have agreed to deny AQ sanctuary we would probably be working with them right now, with very little presence in this country. Mission Creep is a dangerous thing. There is enduring value in Colin Powell's principles for these types of expeditions.
Our problem is that we assess Taliban governance from OUR perspective. The simple fact is that as the information age continues to bring light to the darkest corners of the globe, the harsh, dark age policies of the pre 9/11 Taliban are unsustainable. Either they would evolve or become quickly obsolete.
I look at American history and we idolize the image of the Pilgrims that settled New England. Harsh, men in black, who were uncompromising, intolerant religious extremists that held a fringe ideology of Christianity. They tortured their women and exiled any who dared to hold different religious beliefs to their own. (Thank God for the liberal Dutch colony in New York, which attracted people from all walks, nations, and ideologies; and which was the birthplace of many of the concepts that ultimately came to be thought of as "American.") But the Pilgrims evolved.
The Taliban, if successful, will evolve as well; and it will be on a far more compressed timeline than what the Pilgrims ran on. We just need to go back to our going in position. Deny sanctuary to AQ and groups like them, allow civilian aid organizations access and security, and don't violate international law.
I may not like the way my neighbor talks to his wife, or treats his kids. But if he isn't violating the law I have no legal right to confront him. Certainly there are moral imperatives, but "imperative" is the operative word, and "not like" does not raise to that level.
BL, we in the US do not need to fear the Taliban, lets focus on the real issue. We get off track and make the problem worse when we keep expending the "threat" list and attacking more and more of these organizations. We conflate them in our minds; and then unite them against us by our actions.
If Brittain thought they had their national interests at stake here...
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Originally Posted by
bigdukesix101
The UK can barely maintain 8,900. Don't look for any more they are not resourced to do it.
They would take 8,900 KIA and spit in the enemy's eyes; and have a million men on the ground.
Again, while the metrics guys are looking for indicators, we should apply a couple of metrics to the approach of our NATO allies to this sticky mess.
They come primarly to service the national interest of maintaining good relations with the US; not for any national interests they feel are at stake in Afghanistan. I suspect, that many, like the Pakistanis, realize that supporting the American approach to this problem to date too fully is far more likely to create instability at home, rather than the opposite.
Sometimes your friends are the last ones to tell you when you're being a jackass.