by Abu Muswar
According to our latest intelligence reports about 90% of the people we’re now fighting in Afghanistan are not the Taliban, they are tribal leaders involved in a localized insurgency. In fact many of these people were also fighting the Taliban back in the 1990’s. There’s is a war for turf and we’re just in the way. The others are hardcore religious fanatics and young men who have joined the Taliban because they pay $500 a month and they are very regular with the payment.
“One of the eye openers for us was learning that the Taliban, for the most part, are better paid than the Afghan Security Forces, so that’s something that we and the Afghans have already taken steps to correct,” Robert Gates DOD chief. (What ever happened to their patriotism or is something we’re supposed to buy too?)
Recruits: The Taliban hold a sort of patriotic reverence or charisma among many Afghani, especially those young men with no jobs who might be looking for a little adventure. This has given the Taliban a fair amount of indigenious support and that’s never good when you are fighting a guerilla war.
Funding: The Taliban and Al Qaeda are being funded mostly by the local drug trade which has grossed about 70 million in the last 12 months, more than enough to finance a guerilla war against American and allied forces. Poppy production was actually off by about 20% last year, but the income remained high due to increases in the wholesale price of the raw opium product.
Drug War: A covert intelligence source said, “You can put your troops into counter-insurgency or you can go after the [drug trafficking] middleman but you can’t do both,” Thus the U.S. strategy has been to let the Afghan police go after the opium growers and the middlemen; unfortunately they have not been very effective due to a shortage of equipment and quality personnel. Part of the troop increase is to bolster drug enforcement and cut off Taliban war funds.
Our British allies have been especially keen on drug enforcement and would like NATO to step in and do a larger role along with the Afghanis. (Good luck on that one)
On the political scene President Karzai’s brother is one of those warlords profiting from opium smuggling and from being on the payrole of the CIA. President Karzai is becoming increasingly unpopular with the Afghani people due to his corrupt regime and those who now see democracy as a fraud and failure. Many of them now long for the tight control of the Taliban who at least kept order and corruption was at a minimum.
As one soldier put it, we can try to teach these people a lot of things to bring them into the modern world like writing with a pen, but they would take that pen and jab you in the eye with it. It’s not an easy task to teach these people anything.
A recent secret intell report allegedly says that US presence has little to do with nation building or even the oil and gas pipelines. Everybody including the Taliban had agreed those things were good for Afghanistan. There may be a vast supply of oil under the Afghan soil and this might explain a lot of things. I know you’ve heard that one before…but, this time it could be true! Let’s hope not, but if it is you’ll be among the first to hear about it.