I suspect that the key question in Afghanistan is how the populace perceives the conflict: is the core conflict between the GIROA and the Taliban, with the foreigners intervening in support of the GIROA, or is the core conflict between the foreigners and the Taliban, with the foreigners setting up the GIROA as a local agent of their own devising? If the former, then yes, this is insurgency and we're doing FID. If the latter, then it is war, regardless of how badly we'd like to call it something else.
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