Robert C. Jones:

I don't think you can properly compare a criminal organization within a society with AQ as it exists within Talibania and Pakistan. The criminal has to hide his activities and his identity in order to survive and do his business. Or failing that he has to bribe the cops to pretend they don't see him.

AQ on the other hand doesn't need to hide its' identity or activity. It certainly didn't do that in Afghanistan when the Taliban ran the show and it probably doesn't have to do that in Talibania now. It has to do it a little with the Pak Army/ISI if only because they have to throw the Americans a bone once in awhile. But in the larger sense they don't. Nobody will ever convince me the ISI doesn't know where OBL is. I don't think the analogy holds up.

And as you say, if the Taliban decides AQ has to go, it will go, therefore; who is the agent that is protecting or providing sanctuary for AQ-the Taliban. (I will never ever try to diagram the preceding sentence.)

I think you don't recognize the importance of ideology in all of this. MO and the Taliban didn't do their best to take over Afghanistan just so the Pashtun people could breathe free. They did it also so all the Afghan people couldn't fly kites, watch Bollywood videos, shave occasionally and the girl children couldn't go to school. These guys are fully committed to that ideology and AQ and OBL are fellow travelers. There is nothing we can offer them to make them give them up short of adopting their ideology as our own which would obviate the need to give anybody up. You would have to tell the President that would be the price of cooperation. It won't happen.

That is also the reason AQ couldn't just go north. Who up there would put up with that ideology not to speak of all the heat it would bring down on them? What government that helped the north in the past might be inclined to help again if OBL and the boys are hanging around unmolested? Nobody.

Which brings us to the Pak Army/ISI. They are inclined to help. And since they have a country's, Pakistan's, resources at their disposal, they can offer AQ a country to hide in and be supported by. There is no other country in the world available to them in the same way. None. And why does the Pak Army/ISI do this thing? Ideology is a very big part. They didn't channel the lion's share of the aid during the anti-Soviet effort to the Islamists for nothing. They haven't covered for AQ all these years for nothing. An important part of the Pak Army/ISI is, I think, as ideologically committed as AQ is.

Speaking of the Pak Army/ISI, you didn't answer my question, do they get to pick who governs Afghanistan?

I entirely agree with you about night raids et al. Numbers for the sake of numbers. It's stupid.

I have a question that may belong somewhere else but I am interested in your opinion. We Americans are fascinated with technology, the "we can do it all from the air" attitude. We figure it will be simple and easy. Do you think special ops is assuming a similar place in American culture? I get that idea when I hear spec ops often mentioned in the same breath as airplanes and computers.