for the moment (only), both George and Bob have raised a couple of points that do tie in with the OP and polling data - that is, what do the natives think.

First from George:

I still think "the wedge" belongs between Pukhtuns and Arab al Qaida. Arabs are simply a different lot vs. the Pukhtuns.
I think there may be merit in this wedge - also the wedge between Taliban and non-Taliban Pashtuns.

I've visited Global Hujra Online a number of times; and, yesterday, spent a good part of the night there (including the two threads George cited most recently below). I say that because there seems some tendency to assume that people are not reading things.

Global Hujra Online slants anti-Taliban and anti-AQ - and very pro-Pashtun (and less than friendly to "Punjabis"). But, having said that, the questions I would still ask are:

1. What is the magnitude of those sentiments among all Pashtuns - and then break that down by regions in "Pashtunistan" ?

2. What power base (if any) do these anti-Taliban and anti-AQ Pashtuns have - how many brigades can they field ?

In the run-up to Iraq, we had a surplus of anti-Saddam types who were going to be the solution to the problem. Yeh, right. So, I am leery about the talk, without seeing the walk.

PS - George: I've read that UN report and a dozen others; and also all of our DoS reports on human rights violations in Astan. What I was looking for are specific, documented cases where Taliban & AQ in Astan (or AQ in Iraq) committed war crimes - not just fought us - against our troops. Those cases belong in a new thread in Law Enforcement, if anyone is interested.

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Second, from Bob. No specific quote to start this off, but it has to do with propagating ideology and providing governance.

From the gitgo on SWC, you have made an excellent case for US ideology. While the two of us have disagreed on specific points, both of us are in love with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. OK, agreed that we (US) have an excellent ideology. And, I would say we have a good (albeit scarcely perfect) system of governance. A number of other countries could present the same message (albeit somewhat different, as in David's UK).

So far as assisting another country in countering an insurgency problem, I would ask how material are our ideology and system of governance in solving their problem. Both would be very material if we were willing to make that country our 51st state - not a likely scenario.

Let us take Vietnam as an example. Well-read Vietnamese were well aware of our ideology - Ho wrote it into the preamble of his first constitution. But, let's move south and ask the important question of which was more important to combatting the VC and PAVN: the ideology and governance system of the GSV (from Diem through the iterations of generals); or our ideology and governance system - which was unknown to the vast majority of the population and which was not going to be established in SVN no how, no way ?

In short, if the ideology and governance system of the host nation is FUBAR, what difference can our superior ideology and governance system make in the end result ?

Anyone on this one.