The Nation: No Escalation for Afghanistan:

[amborin]

"But as insurgents, the Taliban remain formidable foes. Our chances of defeating them are poor. Indeed, some independent observers believe they are becoming more popular while we are becoming less popular. They, and many non-Taliban Afghans, regard us, as they regarded the Russians, as foreign, anti-Muslim invaders. Moreover, they see that the government we are backing is corrupt and rapacious. Observers report that it is deeply involved in the drug trade, stealing aid money and even selling US-supplied arms to the Taliban (as the South Vietnamese government did to the Vietcong). Moreover, it is ineffective: its writ hardly runs outside Kabul. Most of the country is in the hands of brutal, predatory warlords. The Karzai government will not last long after our withdrawal--that was the fate of the Soviet puppet government there and of our puppet government in Saigon. Forced to choose between the warlords and the Taliban, Afghans are likely to choose the Taliban. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said, "Key groups have become nostalgic for the security and justice Taliban rule provided." Thus, we are courting long-term strategic defeat.

Even in the tactical short run, I believe, trying to defeat the Taliban is not in America's interest. The harder we try, the more likely terrorism will be to increase and spread. As the history of every insurgency demonstrates, the more foreign boots there are on the ground and the harder the foreigners fight, the more hatred they engender. Substituting drone attacks for ground combat is no solution. Having been bombed from the air, I can attest that it is more infuriating than a ground attack.

Our principal objection to the Taliban is that it has given Osama bin Laden and his immediate entourage a base of operations. The two groups, however, are very different: the Taliban are a national political organization, anchored in Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, while Al Qaeda is a loose alliance of dissidents from many countries, united only by their belief that their legitimate aims of ethnic/national self-determination and religious culture are being denied."

/snip

< http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091019/polk>




and: McChrystal admits U.S. still doesn't understand Afghanistan:

"One of the most shocking things about General Stan McChrystal's leaked "Commander's Initial Assessment" about the war in Afghanistan is how bluntly he admits that the US occupation authorities, ISAF (the NATO International Security Assistance Force), and Centcom know little about the country they've invaded."

/snip

<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/481351/mcchrystal_admits_we_don_t_understand_the_afghans>

[elocs]

1. If the Afghanis want their country they have to want it more than the Taliban

wants to take it from them. They have to be willing to fight and die for their own country while receiving arms and support from the world's biggest superpower. However, if the people of Afghanistan choose to embrace the Taliban, well, that is their choice.