at some point, a country that cannot raise an army of its own people willing to fight and die to be free - can't be free. yes, NATO could be doing more, we should be bombing on he Pak side ofhe border, etc. But the real question is, what are the Afghans doing?
Yep, we inch closer to the battle of Islam versus the modern world.
Scheuer was one of the "brutal Afghan winter" types who predicted a disaster for the Coalition in 2001. He just revises the prediction every now and then, tacking on current news articles, the direr the better.
Scheuer is an anti-Bush hack who's only quality is that he is also anti-Clinton. All his prescriptions are BS. This whole rising Taliban is part of the same defeatist meme that the Socialist media is using to bring suppport down for the War on Terror.
And FReepers are falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
Hard to say. Michael Scheuer has criticized clinton recently for being a liar. On the other hand, he is apparently a leftist, one of those rogue CIA man who thinks he knows better than anyone else and is happy to undermine the government when they fail to do exactly what he recommends.
The problems he raises are real. But I think he exaggerates. No, we can't stay in Afghanistan forever, and we can't fix Islam without some help from the Muslims themselves, or a massive conversion effort that will need to be religious, not political.
Muslim remains an intractably violent and evil religion, IMHO.
Wasn't the author of this article the guy who wrote "Imperial Hubris"? It sounds to me like the only sources he uses are Taliban ones, and they're probably not exactly the most truthful.
My reply to the title: WHO SAID ..??
Another aspect of the Taliban's current agenda that is identical to the mujahideen's political tack in the 1980s is its definitive position that it will not participate in, or even negotiate with, President Karzai's government. In words familiar to those knowledgeable about the absolute intransigence of the Soviet-era mujahideen leaders, Taliban spokesman Mutamen recently explained that there would be no peace talks with Kabul because: "There is no independent government in Afghanistan now. The foreigners have established the current government. The occupying forces should first leave Afghanistan. We can then think of future peace talks...Our resistance, which has now spread throughout the country, is not for the sake of power or government. This is a very silly thought. We want to regain independence so our people can live under the system which they desire which is, of course, and Islamic government"
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It's clear. In order to win the war on terror we have to defeat the desire for "Islamic Government" - the Jihadist ideology, the sharia ideology itself has to be rooted out. And it is deep-seated. ... this will be a very long and hard-fought war, and we will have to start now to rethink how we are fighting it.
Taliban increase activity in Afghanistan.
The following material is taken from emails sent by my son stationed in Afghanistan. He was there from January to Sept. 2006. He was not very optimistic about our chances of ending this situation well. I have not talked with him since his return about his take on the recent agressive British and Canadian activities. Note the dates on his emails.
7/31/06 - Afghanistan is a nation in a very loose sense. Varying forms of civilization exist in the series of valleys that score this country. In between these valleys are steep mountains. From valley to valley the preception of things can be quite different and even in the same valley, villages may have very different views on the coalition forces and the official Afghan govt.
The southern part of the country is where the Taliban had their strongholds. Famous battles like 'Anaconda' (where Bin Laden held up before escaping to Pakistan) took place there. In many cases the Taliban has started to more back in there. They are even bringing their families back.
The south has been phasing into ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) control. ISAF is a NATO creation. It is run and manned by the NATO member military forces. In typical European fashion they are playing it safe. [I have not asked him yet if he considers the recent British and Canadian activity safe.] ...They are going to use what is called the 'ink spot' approach to insurgency. Essentially, you create pockets of civilization under your control. This is also the same strategy used by the French in Algeria (it failed by the way). [If my memory serves this sounds like the strategic hamlets system that we used in Vietnam, also a failure, gleeaikin.] The net effect is to create the self delusion that all is well while giving up the countryside to the insurgency. The insurgents too will create little bases of operation - most likely in the next valley over! They will recruit, train and stage operations against coalition forces from their own safe zones that they control. It looks more like a game of 'go' than a game of chess. The West thinks in terms of chess and the Eastern mind thinks in terms of 'go.' Go may be the only game that you can win by doing nothing.
Europeans have very thin skin. They do not have the same will to fight the Americans do. They are also more pragmatic. We are more ideological. We will fight to the last man for what is 'right.' They will make a simple business decision. ISAF fully takes over the south by the end of this year. Next year's summer offensive will be very hard on them. The year after that - even worse. They will suffer the worst casualties Europe has seen since WWII. I am quite sure the headlines will say as much. The political pressure back home will be too great. In two to three years the Europeans may pull out. They may also simply cease operating in the countryside and hunker down in their walled compounds. They will then ask the US to come back to the south and restore security. We will then have the dangerous job of conducting operations in 'the next valley over.' The American people will then ask, 'After 7 years why are we still finghting and dieing Afghanistan?' The US soldeir will ask 'Why are we still hunting for Taliban in Anaconda?' After all, we chased the Taliban out of Anaconda just a few years ago.
All in all, no one is willing to do anything decisive i this country. This has taken on the air of a multi-national peace keeping effort. Only, no one has informed the Taliban. The Taliban still think they are at war. The Juhad is far from over. In fact, given the current situation in the world. I would say it is just beginning.
When the war started, I thought it would take 7 years of serious fighting to end it. I assumed that we would be engaged in serious fighting. Instead, what we have done is to avoid serious fighting. Instead of a 7 years sprint we have turned this into a 14 year endurance event. There is nothing to be gained by a long sustained military campaign. Americans can deal with just about anything for a short period of time. But after a time we expece results. We need to decide today what we want to do. Shxx or get off the pot. We cannot endure another Vietnam. Either fight this thing in earnest or pack it in and give the country back to the Taliban.
I sent him a report on our forces taking two Afghan towns. He replied:
7/24/06 - What? Five years after 9/11 and the Taliban still controls parts of Afghanistan? How can that be? Maybe it was just those two towns. Yep, our work here is done, we got the last two towns under Taliban control.
You know, we had soundly defeated the Germans and Japanese after 5 years of war with them. Of course, we also were willing to fire bomb and nuke whole cities full of civilians. The Age of Aquarius baby boomers who run things now don't have the stuff it takes to win a war. Ah, what would Patton do?
On the other hand, Vietnam did drag on for 15 years. I think most boomers would rather see a long isolated war with dubious results, than an intense total war with a decisive victory. end
My son does not point out that we lost 500,000 troops in WWII, and 57,000 in Vietnam, and that there was a draft for both wars. Even with Republicans in office, there has not been the political will for that kind of sacrifice. Lord knows what will happen with Dem control.
There is only one reason that someone would believe this tripe -- they do not regulary read Strategy Page (http:\\www.strategypage.com).
The most telling line in the article is when it talks about "the Taliban's improved military performance." Bull. The only thing that the Taliban has improved is their ability to get their people killed: 2000+ dead, just this summer.
They did that with a 300 to 1 exchange rate, even if you count Afghan soldiers into the total. They are not even successful at attacking civilians.
"He said the Russian authorities also assured of their cooperation in training, equipping and strengthening of Afghan police and military."
These are the same Cut and Run traitors calling for withdrawl from Iraq. Now they want to cut and run from Afghanistan as well. They even want to cut and run from South Korea, so they won't be able to stop North Korea when they invade the South.
Yep tribal government is very powerful, and is, also, very popular in England and Canada.. you know, parlimentary(MOB) rule.. Which is similar to Monarchy except with a larger Mob..
Totally unlike America's Republic..