"Why The Taliban Will Retake Afghanistan" Topic

"The ever-vigilant, thoughtful commentator and stalwart Op-For loyalist George W ¡¯64 sent in two articles on Afghanistan for consideration. The first is here, ¡°Why Afghanistan is going to fall¡­¡± This is one of the first paragraphs:

After covering the invasion of Afghanistan, former NPR journalist Sarah Chayes decided to stay in the country to try to help turn it around. She opened a business in Kandahar and probably spent more time living directly with the Afghan people ¡ª without security guards ¡ª than any other American since 2001. Chayes ultimately went to work for coalition forces in the region, sharing the fundamental insight she¡¯d gained: Corruption was eroding public support of the government. She won audiences with all the right people, and even made some converts, but ultimately, her counsel wasn¡¯t taken by the U.S. government as a whole.

(If she did that, then she did a brave and noble thing. However, I have every reason to believe that the lady who ¡°spent more time living directly with the Afghan people ¡ª without security guards ¡ª than any other American since 2001¡å is the remarkable Betsy Beamon. So say I. This is not to disparage Sarah Chayes¡¯ accomplishments, but to highlight Betsy¡¯s¨C and she was on the ground, working, into 2010. But I digress.)…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

There's the awkward fact that the Talibs are a Pashtun people and have no support amongst the 45% of the Afghans who aren't Pashtun…

They can create a lot of fuss and noise, but politically have nothing to offer.

They're not interested in politics, just power.

I do expect they will be the "new" Afghan Army, eventually.

Seems like that is only a matter of time unless the current guys in charge, in Afghanistan AND Pakistan make a major, and concerted, long-term effort to defeat them, and I doubt that is very likely to occur in my lifetime.

Major powers have been trying to kill all the Pathans for thousands of years.

The Brits couldn't manage it in the 1800s, and they had 100 years to try it!

Taliban have never completely held A-stan.

During their height, they merely held the most territories and Kabul.

Other provinces, people and tribes have always resisted them. The Northern Alliance was the strongest. These tribes and people still remain.

The lands called Afghanistan will always remain a fragmented place.

It appears most A'stan factions, tribes, warlords, clerics, etc., don't play well with others …

I never had any doubt that they would retake control of Afghanistan. All we needed to do was look at the history of Afghanistan. But sadly we live in a country that thinks history has no importance. Math and science are the ONLY things that matter.