Resurgent Taliban closing in on Kabul - report

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The conflict in Afghanistan has reached "crisis proportions", with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday.

If NATO, the lead force operating in Afghanistan, is to have any impact against the insurgency, troop numbers will have to be doubled to at least 80,000, the report said.

"The Taliban has shown itself to be a truly resurgent force," the Senlis Council, an independent think-tank with a permanent presence in Afghanistan, wrote in a study entitled "Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink".

"Its ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt," it said. "The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries."

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21194726.htm

[tularetom]

1. I'm thinking you won't see this in the US media

Another "inconvenient truth".

[boricua79]

13. I love the cat picture! NT

[cureautismnow]

19. Correcto Mundo.

ABC and CBS had propagandistic reports about Iraqis returning to their homes (over a 1000 a day) because of "increased security." Nary a word about Afghanistan.

[frogcycle]

2. gee, I thought we had that all taken care of

mopped up and went off to spread christianity in the rest of the heathen world...

[gratuitous]

4. Little Arfin' Annie says things are going swimmingly

I hope the water isn't deeper than we thought.

[tanyev]

3. Uh-oh. Laura may not be able to trot over there for many more photo-ops.

[xchrom]

5. who'd of thought that? -- all that time spent attacking iraq -- you'd have thought

things would be better in afghanistan.

:eyes:

[balantz]

6. Bush and Cheney

are incompitent fucking buffoons. What a fucking farce their show is.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Sounds like the last days of the Soviet puppet government there

Every empire is convinced it won't repeat the mistakes of the one that preceded it.

[DemoTex]

8. Our "Dear Leader" learned nothing from the US war against Viet Nam.

Dear Leader learned even less from the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979 to 1989). But give Bu$h a break, it was hard to see history in the making from his coked-out and liquored-up fog. Could be that nothing has changed. Know what I mean?

[balantz]

9. Oh yeah

Swiss-cheese brain is definately on drugs.

[boricua79]

10. hah..

and they call it a success. Half the country in the hands of enemy forces, and it's a success?

What a goddamned joke!

[Igel]

14. More like over half the country's area is contained in provinces

in which they claim there is permanent Taliban presence.

Those provinces also have substantial government presence. Where you draw the line, and what's more important--the presence of Taliban or the presence of NATO troops or government control--decides how sensationalist the result.

There's also a problem in that any place where it's not clear the government has control is assumed to be under Taliban control. In other words: default is Taliban, and sufficient "acreage" deemed Taliban = put entirely in Taliban column.

But it does lead people to assume, "Over half the country in the hands of enemy forces." Might be, to be honest.

[Marrah_G]

11. Pull every soldier out of Iraq- send them to Afghanistan

Smack the shit out of the Taliban until there are NONE left stand to terrorize and enslave the women of Afghanistan again. Those monsters should never be allowed in power again and the whole damn world, especially the Muslim world, ought to be shouting "Never again ".

[Orangeone]

17. So, you'd rather bring the same hell we bought to Iraq?

Generally, an insurgency needs the support of the populace to hide in. So, that being said, Afghan women aren't helping them? I suppose you could kill them too.:sarcasm:

Yeah, the military did such a bang-up job in Iraq. And what of the many thousands of innocents that would mistakenly be killed while you 'smack the shit out of the Taliban'? Would you personally apologize to the widows and orphan children of them? Oh, I know it's just 'collateral damage'. What pathetic war mongering crap devoid of any actual thinking. :eyes:

[Toots]

22. Afghan women have no say in it

They are treated exactly like Saudi women that "deserve" to be gang raped and then lashed with a strap and jailed if seen with a man unaccompanied..Let Freedom Rain...

[Marrah_G]

24. Worse then Saudi Women

Imagine being confined to your house. No male relative. You are sick, you are hungry. The neighbors give you what food they can spare, but medical treatment is not allowed for women except those with a husband, father or brother who is a doctor. Imagine never being allowed to show any part of your skin, not even your eyes. Not being allowed to speak in public, even the sound of your shoes is offensive to "God". No education, no work. You are sold into marriage, sometimes before you even reach puberty, many times as a 2nd or 3rd wife. You can be beaten and raped. If you are raped by someone other then your husband you can be legally killed for it. The only way out is to set yourself on fire and hope you die.

That is the life of a female under Taliban reign.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. They are very different situations.

[Enoch1981]

25. Really?

Yeah, sure, it is: Afghanistan has fewer cities and more mountains. There's a growing homegrown insurgency and the tactic of the suicide bomber and the IED is being used there however. But I guess since you're not the one who's going to die in that fight it's all well and good and you cheer on the killing in good conscience. You're not the one who's going to return home maimed or in a coffin. Or, conversely, not the one who will have their house bombed and family killed.

And, another point is that given the fractious state of the Afghanistan political scene, do you honestly believe that everyone who fights the US is 'Taliban'? So, that little vignette about human rights under the Taliban doesn't exactly count for anything if they aren't all part of that. Furthermore, do you think that that doesn't go on in places ruled by the warlords that the occupation there has let take power?

[Marrah_G]

23. Tell me please how you would stop the Taliban

Or does the enslavement and murder of women just not fucking matter?

[Enoch1981]

26. Oh, please

That's the best you can come up with? If someone disagrees with you, they must not care about that! Does the enslavement and murder of women by the warlords who took over in the vacuum left when the Taliban left not matter as much as atrocities that occured a number of years ago? Little has really changed with or without the Taliban in charge. Some recent examples:

http://www.rawa.org/gangrape.htm

http://www.rawa.org/women_north.htm

http://www.rawa.org/rape.htm

If they hadn't been allowed to run riot and do pretty much whatever they pleased when the Afghan people were favorable towards the Americans maybe there wouldn't be a new insurgency. If the occupation did something now there might be a chance.

[daleo]

12. Afghanistan is awfully big

40,000 troops, 80,000 troops...the Soviets had 100,000+, as far as I know.

[Yupster]

16. It's a problem because

the original plan was to not put combat troops in Afghanistan because the locals would rebel against a foreign presence. So we fought with just information, and a few groups of combat hunting teams far from settled areas to keep the Taliban bottled up on the defensive in the mountains.

But as missions always seem to go, we've had mission creep and little by little more and more foreign troops have been brought in always with calls for many more.

Next we can expect the locals turning against the foreign presence just like it was predicted at the beginning, but the only call for change you hear is to bring in more foreign troops.

It's truly a mess.

[Barrett808]

15. What an appalling catastrophe

I usually reserve that phrase for Iraq, but it's looking apt for Afghanistan as well.

:mad:

[SKKY]

18. Fan-fucking-tastic...

...and the likelihood that I'll be somewhere in that part of the world next year is about 99.999%. Lovely. Just fucking peachy.

[varun]

20. Taliban has also taken over Swat Valley in Pakistan

the premier tourist destination of Pakistan. They are within 100 miles of Pakistan's capital - Islamabad.

So much for our ally - Musharraf :eyes:

[agincourt]

21. Your Bushco

$100.00 per barrel oil money at work. Thanks Dick and George for managing to spend half a trillion to bring AlQaeda and the Taliban back.