Interesting article and great initiative by the Marines...certainly supports various findings over the years that this 'new war' is possibly more akin to policing and CRIMINT than it is to the Fulda Gap...

...however I'm a little wary about criminalising the Taliban at the same as they are one of the key power blocs that needs to be brought to the table. It's just not a simple case of black and white, good v bad where groups can be categorised and boxed up that easily - and as Rex points out the bigger criminals maybe those in the Afghan government. I think that we might be better off int he long term considering the Taliban as competitors in AFG as opposed to direct adversaries/enemies (as we may once have thought of Soviet Russia, China, Nazi Germany, etc) and accept that this new environment just multiple layers of grey and that means that we will probably need to accept unsavoury partnerships and alliances in support of the long term game...