Taliban controls 10% of Afghan, government - 30%

[K. A. Pital]

Read on BBC

Taleban 'run 10% of Afghanistan'

Hamid Karzai praying. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government was said to lack control

Six years after being ousted in the US-led invasion, the Taleban have retaken about 10% of Afghanistan, US intelligence chief Mike McConnell says.

The government controlled just 30% of the country, and the rest was under tribal control, the director of national intelligence told senators.

But that assertion has been denied by the Afghan government as incorrect.

The Committee on Armed Services heard the Taleban's resurgence was due partly to increased support from al-Qaeda.

The last 12 months have seen the worst violence in Afghanistan since 2001.

The head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency told the same committee major problems remained in trying to crack down on the lawless tribal area on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

'Vital sanctuary'

Lt Gen Michael Maples said the Pakistani military was not trained for that fight.

He added that it would take three to five years to address those deficiencies and to make a difference.

"Pakistani military operations in the [region] have not fundamentally damaged al-Qaeda's position," Gen Maples said.

"The tribal areas remain largely ungovernable and, as such, they will continue to provide vital sanctuary to al-Qaeda, the Taleban and regional extremism more broadly."

In Washington, independent foreign policy experts have previously warned that Afghanistan largely remains a failing state.

The latest assessment from US military chiefs underlines the cause for concern facing Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, says the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington.

It has strongly rejected the claim that it controls only 30% of the country.

"This is far from the facts and we completely deny it," the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement.

"All Afghan people know that in the 34 provinces of Afghanistan and in more than 360 districts... the government has control," the statement said.

Ministers argue that just because tribal leaders are encouraged to ensure security in some areas, that does not mean that the government is not present there.

I see far more sense in Obama's Afghanistan position. If you can salvage a war, that's probably the Afghan one. The Iraq one is only making things worse and diverting resources.

Also, the "government" of Afghanistan is a fucking joke, which is proven yet again. "The fact that tribal leaders control Afghanistan doesn't matter since our guys are present in the area". Yeah.

[Dartzap]

Quite true about the government - Karzai point blank refused to work with Paddy Ashdown recently, despite the fact he has quite good experience of working in hostile countries for the UN. What did they think he was going to do? Rule the school with politeness and socialist ideals?

[cosmicalstorm]

Wars in Afghanistan are very slow moving affairs, the Talibans probably have the patience to stay around until NATO decides to leave for whatever reason.

[FedRebel]

Wars in Afghanistan are very slow moving affairs, the Talibans probably have the patience to stay around until NATO decides to leave for whatever reason.

...which isn't good for the Taliban's health.

Remember the Taliban blatantly supports Al Queda and we told them before 9/11 that if Al Queda attacked the US we would hold the Taliban responsible.

Just ask the Japanese what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war

[Shroom Man 777]

...which isn't good for the Viet Cong's health.

Just ask the Viet Cong what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war.


More seriously though, Obama must have the incredible foresight and unbelievable knowledge only common sense could give a man.

[MKSheppard]

I see far more sense in Obama's Afghanistan position. If you can salvage a war, that's probably the Afghan one. The Iraq one is only making things worse and diverting resources.

My POV is that it doesn't matter how much manpower or resources you put into afghanistan. The place has a way of eating armies up, from the British ones in the 19th century, to the Soviet in the 20th century; etc. Just keep the place on a simmering low boil until they get tired of killing. Which won't be for a while now.

[K. A. Pital]

The place has a way of eating armies up

Obama said he's ready to deal with Paki and Afghan islamists alike. This is very important. Any limited incursion in Afghanistan which fails to stop the Pushtun border regions from becoming lawless talibanism, is doomed.

The USSR could have very well achieved total victory if it cut off the Paki-Afghan border region; remember also that there were billions shimmered by US and Pakistan into the Mujaheden.

Now, the current Taliban lacks such massive funding. If you don't let it grow like a cancer over the country and make a strong government (not this pathetic "democracy" which doesn't control ANYTHING), you can hold the country with marginal cost.

[Jadeite]

...which isn't good for the Viet Cong's health.

Just ask the Viet Cong what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war.

The Viet Cong were pretty much wiped out in the Tet Offensive, and many "Viet Cong" units afterwards were actually composed of regular NVA troops.

[K. A. Pital]

The Viet Cong were pretty much wiped out in the Tet Offensive, and many "Viet Cong" units afterwards were actually composed of regular NVA troops.

After which the US lost the war. Are you saying a political failure can't become the reason for losing Afghanistan? When this has been the reason for the loss of the last campaign (USSR, 1979-89) - political failure despite a clear military dominance?

[Jadeite]

The Viet Cong were pretty much wiped out in the Tet Offensive, and many "Viet Cong" units afterwards were actually composed of regular NVA troops.

After which the US lost the war. Are you saying a political failure can't become the reason for losing Afghanistan? When this has been the reason for the loss of the last campaign (USSR, 1979-89) - political failure despite a clear military dominance?

I'm replying to the implication that the Vietcong were the reason for the US defeat in Vietnam, when they were actually wiped out and credit should to go the NVA.

[Sidewinder]

...which isn't good for the Viet Cong's health.

Just ask the Viet Cong what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war.

The North Vietnamese suffered ten times more casualties than the US, not to mention devastation of their cities, infrastructure, and environment; a textbook definition of a Pyrric victory. If push comes to shove, I expect the Taliban to suffer comparable losses; they may end up ruling Afghanistan again, but who'd want to rule a giant cemetary, littered with UXO, where the soil is so polluted that no grass can grow?

[Stuart Mackey]

...which isn't good for the Viet Cong's health.

Just ask the Viet Cong what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war.

The North Vietnamese suffered ten times more casualties than the US, not to mention devastation of their cities, infrastructure, and environment; a textbook definition of a Pyrric victory.

Depends on your definition of a victory, does it not? The north lost all the battles and it was irrelevant, the North got what it wanted and the US did not.

If push comes to shove, I expect the Taliban to suffer comparable losses; they may end up ruling Afghanistan again, but who'd want to rule a giant cemetary, littered with UXO, where the soil is so polluted that no grass can grow?

The people who call it home.

[Aaron]

The North Vietnamese suffered ten times more casualties than the US, not to mention devastation of their cities, infrastructure, and environment; a textbook definition of a Pyrric victory. If push comes to shove, I expect the Taliban to suffer comparable losses; they may end up ruling Afghanistan again, but who'd want to rule a giant cemetary, littered with UXO, where the soil is so polluted that no grass can grow?

That's what they had before, so it won't be any different.

[HemlockGrey]

It may be possible to destroy the Taliban if the US and Pakistan can achieve some sort of breakthrough on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, but there is no way any native central government is going to be able to exert effective control over the majority of the country unless they're backed up by overwhelming outside force. So unless we want a hundred year NATO occupation of Afghanistan the best we can do is hope to break the Taliban, leave a friendly government in control of Kabul and hope the rest of the country falls back into the old pattern of killing each other and leaving us alone.

[Simplicius]

According to a North Waziristani interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor here, the militants in the FATA have pretty much decapitated the tribal leadership, eliminating any source of native resistance. Between the hands-off approach Pakistan has taken to the region, the Pakistani military's approach thus far, and the recent political developments in that country I wouldn't expect the problem to be solved from the Pakistani side of the frontier any time soon.

Other problems with that border area include the cross-border traffic of people going about their ordinary lives (you can always stop that, of course, but look what happened when Palestinians were walled off from their places of work, etc.), and the fact that the Taliban on the FATA border has changed into an amorphous network of a few different militant groups with no single leadership cadre.

Add to that, even if you somehow manage to 'solve' Afghanistan in isolation, leaving the rot in Pakistan alone presents its own set of problems.

[MKSheppard]

After which the US lost the war.

We forced the North Vietnamese to the table after the Christmas bombings of 1972 and got a peace treaty.......which the North Vietnamese violated blatantly in 1975 with a giant mechanized and armored assault south with several hundred tanks in the open....a target just itching for a carpet bombing by B-52s.

It's no surprise the South Vietnamese Army collapsed; when you have to fight off a armored assault with nothing but bad breath due to Congress terminating US military aid to south vietnam...

In a way, South Vietnam's fall is eerily similar to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's fall to the Taliban following the dissolution of the Soviet Union when they lost their major supplier of both money and munitions.

[Ariphaos]

...which isn't good for the Viet Cong's health.

Just ask the Viet Cong what happens when you start shit with the US and try to weather the ensuing war.

The Viet Cong harbored a terrorist that orchestrated the killing of several thousand Americans?

[Thanas]

^C'mon...you should know that he was responding to FedRebel's USA wankage of "DE BIG USA IS COOOMING AFTR U"...