About Me

My photo
I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Saturday, July 16, 2011


Attacks Show Taliban are Not as Weak as the US Claims

by Patrick Cockburn for The Independent

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful Afghan in the south of the country, will reinforce the feeling among Afghans that the Taliban can strike anywhere at any time and are not weakening as American military commanders haveclaimed.

This will be the impact regardless of who killed Mr Karzai because the assassination follows the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and the killing of top officials in northern Afghanistan. These spectacular and highly publicised attacks are typical of developments in the war since the United States launched its troop surge in 2009, which is now in the process of being reversed. The Taliban reportedly killed and wounded 56 per cent more US soldiers in the nine months leading up to May, compared with a similar period a year earlier. When they have come under pressure in one valley, they move to another one. If necessary, they can also take temporary refuge in Pakistan, which shares a 1,550-mile border with Afghanistan – about the same distance from London to Moscow. Also in the Taliban's favour is the deteriorating relationship between the US and Pakistan since the killing of Osama bin Laden.

There are other signs the Taliban remain a well-organised military group, such as the spectacular escape from Kandahar prison of 541 prisoners down a 1,200ft tunnel dug over five months in April this year. The US claim to have killed many mid-level Taliban commanders is probably true, but they are being replaced by vengeful cousins and brothers who are less likely to support local or national peace agreements than their predecessors. The overall problems of the Afghan government and its foreign allies remain the same. The central government is weak and is regarded as a collection of racketeers by much of the population. The Taliban may not be very popular, but the total alienation of so many Afghans from the government gives it undiminished political and military strength.

Claims of social and economic progress are also often misleading. More children may go to school and university but there are few jobs for them when they graduate. Despite the US spending $10bn (£6bn) a month, millions of Afghans try to survive on $2 a day.

[So, after a war that has lasted as long, or longer, than the First and Second World Wars combined the Taliban remain a coherent and able fighting force despite everything we have thrown at them. Two questions spring immediately to mind: Is this a war that we can win? Is this even a war that we should have any part of?]

2 comments:

wstachour said...

While the invasion of Iraq was plainly and flatly unwarranted and frankly illegal, I always believed that our doings in Afghanistan had at least an odor of legitimacy.

Until, that is, I read (as I currently am) Chris Hedges' "Death Of the Liberal Class." And he shows war generally, and Afghanistan particularly, to be at best utter folly and more likely a huge moneymaking scam perpetrated on a gullible public to enrich the already-wealthy. And given the numbers of people maimed and killed in the process, a morally reprehensible scam at that.

We have been duped into supporting and funding things about which we know nothing (by design) and which serve the needs of a small group far removed from our lives and concerns. It's no surprise that what we think we know bears little resemblance to the actual truth.

CyberKitten said...

Iraq War II was frankly bizarre. I wonder how future historians will explain it.

I can understand the attack on bases inside Afghanistan used by the people who planned 9/11 - but to invade and hold (or at least attempt to hold) the entire country is, at best, foolhardy and most definitely short-sighted. I have yet to see a reasonable argument why, after 10 years, we still have troops dying in that country.