AFGHANISTAN - A LESSON 200 YEARS OLD

A U.S. drone attack on Wednesday on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border killed at least seven Taliban members, including a number of foreign fighters, Reuters reported. U.S. drones have carried out more than 30 strikes over the last year, including 7 under the watch of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Obama, meanwhile, has ordered the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan in an effort to stamp out the threat of the Taliban.

Curiously, however, as the war in Afghanistan stretches into its seventh year, the U.S. State Department has not designated the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

From what is known, the problem may have initially stemmed from the fact that, by law, the State Department could not designate a government. This is no longer a hang-up; the Taliban government that sheltered al-Qaeda and Usama bin Laden from its rise to power in 1996 until its demise in 2001 is now dead and gone. The new organization that has sprouted up in its stead can perhaps be best described as an al-Qaeda “affiliate group.” It remains committed to carrying out a violent jihad against both U.S. servicemen and civilians in Afghanistan, and likely maintains contact with the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces that challenged the U.S. military during Operation Enduring Freedom. However, it no longer enjoys the government infrastructure that housed the Taliban for five years until 2001.

The bigger question at Foggy Bottom is now whether the Taliban should be viewed as a terrorist organization or an insurgency organization. Indeed, language from the 2007 State Department country report on Afghanistan seemed to imply that the Taliban was both.

In fact, the consensus at State is that the Taliban is made up of two factions " one moderate, and another one radical. Or, to put it another way, there may be a Taliban with a capital ‘T’ and a taliban with a lower case ‘t’.

President Obama underscored this notion in a March 8 interview with the New York Times, when he expressed an interest in reaching out to moderate forces among the militants, similar to those that helped bring stability to Iraq. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,” he said.

The Taliban quickly dismissed Obama’s musings as “illogical.” Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a spokesman for the Taliban, insists that the Taliban are “united, have one leader, one aim, one policy.” The group claims that their campaign of violence will not end until the U.S. led forces in Afghanistan are defeated.

Meanwhile, the State Department continues to add less relevant terrorist groups to its FTO list. Peru’s Shining Path or the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (two recent additions) have little to do with the broader war on Islamist terror, yet their listings give the sense that they might pose more of a national security threat than the unlisted Taliban.

Designating the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is long overdue.

For one, it would demonstrate that the United States views the Taliban as part of a dangerous jihadi network that is undoubtedly terrorist in nature. It is a mistake to allow the world to believe that even parts of the Taliban should be viewed as a legitimate “resistance” organization. A number of American allies, including Great Britain, the European Union, and Australia have followed America’s lead. They have also left the Taliban off their terrorism lists. Most recently, Russia indicated that it would hold talks with “moderate elements” of the Taliban after Obama indicated that he was considering a similar move. A designation would help reverse this dangerous trend.

More importantly, a Taliban designation would also recognize the great work that our military has done in Afghanistan. It would be tantamount to officially relegating the former Taliban government to an affiliate group " the first and only instance in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

In other words, a designation would relay our belief that the Taliban cannot, under the current circumstances, mount enough strength to retake Afghanistan.

If moderate elements wish to negotiate with the U.S. military or even our diplomatic corps, they should not be allowed to approach the negotiating table as members of the Taliban. If they recognize the defeat of their banned terrorist group, they should be welcomed with open arms.

The CIA, we learned in a report today, has compiled damning evidence of the Pakistani military’s complicity with the Taliban. But this is hardly news. Indeed, one analyst has repeatedly warned that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf and his intelligence service have been taking America for a ride, pretending to support U.S. counter-terrorism operations while sheltering and supporting the Taliban and numerous other extremist organizations. That analyst is Ahmed Rashid, and he is the most articulate of the observers of the region between the Oxus and the shores of Karachi. Based in Lahore, Rashid combines scholarly excellence with popular appeal, as demonstrated by his book on the Taliban, which is Yale University Press’s all-time best-seller . Rashid’s latest book, Descent into Chaos pulls back the cover on American operations in Afghanistan, which were hampered from the outset by chronic bad judgment on the part of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

The ME in general has a surplus of unemployed, or underemployed, young men who can be easily lured to join the Taliban. They are promised a job of sorts, travel, and an opportunity to kill infidel occupliers. This is all the more reason to get the hell out.

Okie, Foxy, et al., on the right would just cheer them on.

According to reports leaked to the BBC, General Stanley McChrystal will liken the US military to a bull charging at the matador-like Taliban and slightly weakened with each "cut" it receives. The review is also expected to confirm that protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban must be the top priority. US officials have spoken openly about the failing war effort in Afghanistan and McChrystal's report will be a distillation of their strong misgivings.

McChrystal says the aim should be for Afghan forces to take the lead but that the Afghan army will not be ready to do so for three years and it will take much longer for the police to reach the right level of preparation.

The report does not mention increasing troop numbers, but the implication is that more soldiers will be needed to turn around an unsuccessful strategy. Officers in Afghanistan consider much of the effort of the last eight years wasted, with too few troops deployed and many of them placed in the wrong regions and given the wrong orders.

Any recommendation of a troop increase would come against a background of growing scepticism about the war, with the latest Washington Post-ABC news poll showing that only 49% of Americans now think the fight in Afghanistan is worthwhile. Obama appointed McChrystal to turn a war that is sucking in more and more western troops with litte discernible progress against the Taliban, which has proven to be much more resilient and organised than expected.

"Over the next 12 to 15 months, among the things you absolutely, positively have to do is persuade a sceptical American public that this can work, that you have a plan and a strategy that is feasible," Stephen Biddle, a military expert who advises the US-led command in Afghanistan, told the McClatchy-Tribune news service.

Another leading counter-insurgency expert said Afghanistan's government must fight corruption and deliver services to Afghans quickly, because Taliban militants were filling gaps and winning support....<cont>

I am not sure why you bothered to post that post at all as it answered nothing and was basically nothing more than a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

Also, we need to keep up the pressure on Pakistan to do real things to counter AQ in their country.

i still doubt that the U.S. (and others) are willing to put enough military AND MONEY into trying to win the conflict ( at least in the short term ) .
perhaps it has been realized ( but not been stated publicly ) that this process (pacifying) can only be a long-term project that might stretch out over decades .
i think there are enough examples in the world history showing that often a quick resolution/victory cannot be achieved .

The campaign in Afghanistan is failing and the strategies in place must be revised, the commander of US and Nato forces said today.

General Stanley McChrystal described the situation in the country as "serious", but said success could be achieved there with a new approach.
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Gen McChrystal now commands 103,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 63,000 Americans and 9,00 British soldiers. More than half of the US force arrived this year as part of an escalation strategy begun under outgoing President George W. Bush.

The existing force is due to rise to 110,000, including 68,000 Americans, by the end of this year.

Since taking command, Gen McChrystal has adjusted the focus of Western forces from hunting down insurgents to trying to protect the Afghan population, borrowing in part from US tactics in Iraq developed under CentCom commander General David Petraeus.

(that also seems to be what the pakistanis are doing : protecting the vast masses of the population rather than hunting all over the place for small groups of insurgents - particularly in the border areas )

His review is expected to suggest concentrating forces in more heavily populated areas and also stepping up efforts to train Afghan soldiers and police.

Oh yea, real deja vu. We went into Iraq when they didn't attack us. Obama stepped up the heat in Afghanistan because the Taliban/AQ and other anti-groups have been regrouping and carrying out terrorist activities. They did attack us. AQ and the Taliban are getting help and recruitment from Pakistan and there are AQ and the Taliban in Pakistan as well, it may be at some point we may have to go over the border if the Pakistan government does not do more to fight AQ and Taliban.

In too deep

JONATHAN Steele's assertion that ''Hardware may change, but it's still a struggle to battle 'ghosts' in Afghanistan'' (Comment, 2/9) highlights the glaring reality that is history repeating itself. The situation in Afghanistan is an arguably avoidable mess, had governments and NATO paused to consider events of the past and the ramifications of trying to fight an ideology.

As an historian and history teacher, I have seen many students somewhat bewildered when studying 20th-century world history and then considering current world events; we have often joked that if politicians had been better history students, then maybe they would have the foresight and insight to avoid committing troops and innocent civilians to battles against a faceless enemy.

Just as the need to personify communism during the Cold War led to our involvement in Vietnam and Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, the need to have a terrorism incarnate to justify fearmongering has once again led to international bodies finding themselves in way over their heads.

And as Steele also highlighted, the Soviet occupation was at a time when ''nation building by foreign powers was in vogue''. What exactly is the advantage this time?

Sarah Fenton, St Kilda East