Article

2019-03-13 Afghanistan

The Taliban Is Talking Peace, But Look What They're Doing

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Besoeker 2019-03-13 07:29|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 nothing new too see here

Posted by chris 2019-03-13 09:43|| 2019-03-13 09:43|| Front Page Top

#2 Required to by the hudna principle. But it might be useful to follow them home between rounds.

Posted by trailing wife 2019-03-13 14:18|| 2019-03-13 14:18|| Front Page Top

#3 Jazz Shaw obviously hasn't read very much history. Peace talks are typically accompanied by ferocious offensives. The point is to pressure the other side to make concessions, and to maximize one's gains before the final ceasefire, after which everyone's supposed to stop armed activity in observance of the final treaty. If our guys are not holding the Taliban's face to a lit stove turned up to maximum, somebody at the White House is not doing his job. And as it turns out, I believe our guys are in fact bombing the heck out of the Taliban. But short of a Chinese style strategy of depopulating enemy sanctuaries via removal, starvation or massacre (the first two of which were features of the the winning of the West), it's hard to see a quick resolution to the war.

You can't just kill the Taliban - you have to kill all the able-bodied men related to the Taliban who could quickly become (or are secretly) Taliban. In wartime, there is no room for beyond a reasonable doubt, even for a country with the biggest economy in the world. Given domestic sensibilities, the way we're forced to fight this war is very different from the Taliban's and that is why we cannot win it. If we fought it like the Taliban, they would already be defeated. Of course, millions of Taliban and suspected Taliban supporters would be lying in mass graves.

There are reasons for our qualms. Rules that are used against foreigners might be used against our own in the event of another civil war. At the same time, they tie our hands in fighting another nation's civil war. While I think it's worthwhile holding to our rules of engagement for big picture domestic reasons, they mean that we need to be realistic about cutting our losses when our local allies in foreign civil wars can't cut the mustard. Our Afghan allies have had huge amounts of aid pumped into their economy. 20 years is long enough.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2019-03-13 17:36|| 2019-03-13 17:36|| Front Page Top

#4 Given domestic sensibilities, the way we're forced to fight this war is very different from the Taliban's and that is why we cannot win it.

I should say we cannot win it at a cost acceptable to us - $40b a year for as long as the eye can see. On the other hand, it may make sense to extend a annual stipend of several billion dollars a year to the current Afghan regime. The guy supported by the Soviets actually kept it together right up to the point that they cut off his funding. That stipend will (1) give him and other big men in the regime a fighting chance and (2) force them to strip down their decision-making in a direction that favors winning the war, thereby staying alive.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2019-03-13 17:44|| 2019-03-13 17:44|| Front Page Top

#5 Er the great game is played by getting tribes to fight each other and covertly supporting one side to cleanse the area of troublesome tribes. But the important corollary is to never let one tribe get bigger than the others!

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-03-13 21:39|| 2019-03-13 21:39|| Front Page Top

22:32 Menhadden Dingle6811
21:39 Bright Pebbles
21:08 Abu Uluque
21:04 Skidmark
20:59 Skidmark
20:49 Zorba Sninens1307
20:41 Glulet Ghibelline1891
20:22 Mad Eye Poodle3070
20:20 Besoeker
20:03 Frank G
19:25 Alaska Paul
17:57 magpie
17:44 Zhang Fei
17:36 Zhang Fei
16:21 DarthVader
16:20 M. Murcek
16:17 M. Murcek
16:03 Besoeker
15:56 charger
15:33 M. Murcek
15:30 M. Murcek
15:24 M. Murcek
15:22 SteveS
15:10 Bright Pebbles