Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Shared here is a slide from a presentation I am preparing promote a proposal for a more effective way ahead in Afghanistan. Many are cheering the successes of the past year, while calmer heads, notably GEN Petraeus and MG Nick Carter, are taking an optimistic "wait and see what next fighting season brings" approach.

My position is that this insurgency is best seen in two distinct tiers. The upper tier being a revolutionary insurgency driven by the Quetta Shura primarily, with largely political issues of causation. The rank and file that the brunt of the COIN surge is directed against, are what I call the lower tier, and are in essence a resistance insurgency. This is an effort to depict how increased foreign presence and effort affects a resistance insurgency.

The 66% increase in violent attacks is clear. What will happen next year is less clear, and I submit will be impacted far more by how we engage the high-level political drivers between Karzai and the Quetta Shura than by any nation building or security efforts in the rural areas.
Lets not dress the Taliban up in clothes that are not theirs. They are primarily a mercenary force being paid (partially out of the proceeds of the drug trade) and using nationalism and a bunch of other reasons to cover this in a shroud of patriotism. The first step would be to put the word out (and to scale up for it) that there will be no poppy crop next year come hell or high water. The failure to address the poppy and drug issues in Afghanistan will go down as the single most insane US political decision of this war. Still waiting to see how far the corruption has spread in this regard.