Hi Ken,

Good points all. BTW, I think that it is a good exercise for us to occasionally tie the discussion back to your Revolution; not (solely ) because I'm UEL, but because I suspect most Americans don't really have an easy time of intuitively thinking as if they were the insurgents.

BTW, I agree with you totally on the (probable) differences in both problem set and solution potential. Part of the reason I positioned the "general populace" as playing off the sides on the issue goes back to Bolivia where Che's revolution dissolved once the land reforms went through. In hat instance, the land tenure system was perceived by most of the population as the root problem.

So, by way of extension, what do the Afghans (in general) perceive the "root problem" to be? The Taliban are selling a problem-solution set that is quite old (it's technically called a Revitalization Movement and it's been used thousands of times). What is the government selling? What does the population want? Split out by which segments? At the same time, are those wants acceptable to US, NATO and Afghan politicians?

Sorry, my head is in theoretical clouds at the moment...

Marc