Green on Blue: causes and responses (merged thread)

[Entropy]

It seems pretty clear to me that this is the beginning of the end in Afghanistan. Once the election is over, expect the timetable to be moved up to next year.

[TDB]

It seems pretty clear to me that this is the beginning of the end in Afghanistan. Once the election is over, expect the timetable to be moved up to next year.

Definitely. Strong hints the British drawdown with be far more rapid than previously stated. Soon enough it will be like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

[carl]

Perhaps this belongs someplace else, but here I place it for now.

What if Taliban & Co. and the Pak Army/ISI continue to push this? The object of that would not be simply ejecting us from Afghanistan but ejecting us ignominiously. That would serve the greater purposes of humiliating the west, furthering the Islamo-fascist agenda and stoking the megalomania of the Pak Army/ISI. They could impose upon us conditions in return for not placing us in a position whereby we would be besieged in our big bases, have to run a gauntlet to get out and still end up leaving a lot of materiel.

I say this because as others have noted, the rate at which these attacks have occurred has increased very substantially in recent months. With that in mind, I don't think it beyond imagination that Taliban & Co may be behind that. If so, they could stop it. Even if not, they still could put a big damper on them by saying they would not take in the killers. But we would have to give something to them and their Pak Army/ISI masters.

The recent killing of 4 and wounding of 2 SF guys makes me think this may be progressing beyond pissed off ANSF guys getting some back. Apparently 6 ANP officers were involved somehow in a fight with the SF. One died and the others fled and haven't been found. If it was group attack that is very significant and makes me think Taliban & Co are starting maybe to direct things.

So to me, the US has been backed into a corner and some very decisive things will have to be done. We can't just meander along and pretend that things are going ok enough because 'look how well the spec ops night raids are going' (facetiousness alert, but only partly). We will have to do some actual things. Some things that come to my fevered mind are-basically surrender to Taliban & Co and the Pak Army/ISI, or permanently cut the Karachi supply line and publicly recognize Pak Army/ISI as the enemy and take things from there, or find and bump off Mullah Omar, or publicly partner with India or just turn the whole thing over to them, or a combination, or ten things I haven't thought of.

The point is muddling along won't do anymore. If I was Taliban & Co and Pak Army/ISI I would push this for everything I could get out of it which will force us to act.