taliban is taking back iraq

[mjairlax]

clickery

Three years ago the Taliban operated in squad sized units. Last year they operated in company sized units (100 or more men). This year the Taliban are operating in battalion-sized units (400-plus men). So reported retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, professor of international affairs at West Point, after his second trip to Afghanistan to assess the balance of forces.
The former Clinton administration drug czar and commander of the 24th Infantry Division in the Gulf war, Gen. McCaffrey concluded that in the last three years, Taliban has reconstituted the obscurantist movement that took Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages in the 1990s. "They are brutalizing the population," said the general's written report, "and they are now conducting a summer-fall campaign to knock NATO out of the war, capture the provincial capital of Kandahar, isolate the Americans, stop the developing Afghan educational system, stop the liberation of women, and penetrate the new police force and Afghan National Army (ANA)."
Taliban now have "excellent weapons" and "new field equipment" -- prized by the equipment-poor ANA -- and "new IED [improvised explosive devices] technology and commercial communications," Gen. McCaffrey said. "They appear to have received excellent tactical, camouflage and marksmanship training," and "they are very aggressive and smart in their tactics."
"The Afghan Army is miserably underresourced," the report concluded. "This is now a major morale factor for their soldiers. They have shoddy small arms -- described by Defense Minister [Abdul Rahim] Wardak as much worse than he had as a Mujahideen fighting the Soviets 20 years ago.
"Afghan field commanders told me they try to seize weapons from the Taliban who they believe are much better armed. ... [They] have little ammo... no mortars, few machine guns, no MK19 grenade guns, and no artillery... no helicopter or fixed transport or attack aviation now or planned ... no body armor... no Kevlar helmets... no light armored wheeled vehicles."
The Afghan National Police is even worse off than the army: "They are in a disastrous condition, badly equipped, corrupt, incompetent, poorly led and trained, riddled by drug use and lacking any semblance of ... infrastructure."
Gen. McCaffrey didn't mince words about Pakistan's links with Taliban: "Their base areas in Pakistan are secure." Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf hotly denies what is undeniable. But Gem/ McCaffrey counters, "Pakistan is an active sanctuary for the Taliban and is struggling against the 'Talibanization' of their side of the frontier. ... Pakistani madrassas [Koranic schools] continue to get the very bright sons of the Afghan rural areas because of poverty and lack of a proper Afghan educational system."
Gen. McCaffrey said there were two obstacles on the unmarked Pakistani-Afghan border. First of all, the border -- a long, 1,400-mile line through deserts and mountains that peak at 15,000 feet -- does not exist. A British colonial official and an Afghan king drew an arbitrary line on a map in 1893 and agreed it would be the border for the next 100 years. The Pashtun tribes are the same on both sides.
Second, the Pakistani army has lost some 700 men killed and several thousand wounded while trying to establish control over its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where Taliban and al Qaeda call the shots among tribal fundamentalists.
Recently, some 400 tribal leaders held a jirga in North Waziristan with Mr. Musharraf's representative and demanded dismantling of all army checkpoints and return all troops to their base camp. Mr. Musharraf's answer was to move 10,000 additional troops to FATA, for a total of 90,000.
Taliban will soon adopt a strategy of "waiting us out," Gen. McCaffrey predicted. Anyone who has spent any time in Afghanistan in recent years says, "Afghans know the foreigners will leave sooner or later and Taliban is here to stay." That was why Gen. McCaffrey recommended a firm, irrevocable minimum of 10- to 15-year U.S. and NATO commitment to see Afghanistan locked in to a democratic future.
Arrayed against a resurgent Taliban, Gen. McCaffrey says, "We have a very, very small U.S. military presence [17,000 troops] in a giant and dangerous land which is one-third larger than Iraq [the size of Texas]. U.S. forces face thousands of heavily armed Taliban as well as pervasive criminal and Warlord forces. ... Afghanistan is awash with weapons. Taliban suicide bombings and IEDs are now constant and rapidly growing in intensity and effectiveness."

Well we haven't caught Bin Laden. And the taliban is posed to take back Afghanistan. What is going on here the people who were responisible for 9/11 are still free and gaining power, we haven't finished the job and then we left

[losiglow]

Too long! Too lazy to read this long run-on paragraph!

[SolInvictus]

...woah, hold on a sec. doesn't taking something back require that something was taken from them?

[Ass0lut3]

At 7/6/06 11:09 AM, shi_huangdi wrote: ...woah, hold on a sec. doesn't taking something back require that something was taken from them?

I think he means Afghanistan.

[TwO-FaCeD-PaRaNoID]

At 7/6/06 11:30 AM, Ass0lut3 wrote:

At 7/6/06 11:09 AM, shi_huangdi wrote: ...woah, hold on a sec. doesn't taking something back require that something was taken from them?

I think he means Afghanistan.

lol, indeed are you American or something

[Memorize]

Washington Times....pft.

[SolInvictus]

At 7/6/06 11:30 AM, Ass0lut3 wrote:

I think he means Afghanistan.

did he? i didn't bother reading after i saw the title, and i still refuse to.

[SephirothX03]

Did anyone actually read all of that?

[Nylo]

At 7/6/06 11:15 PM, SephirothX03 wrote: Did anyone actually read all of that?

Staple rule in literature: If the author didn't care enough to make it look pretty he/she has already failed the audience.

[Akm27]

At 7/7/06 12:01 AM, Nylo wrote:

At 7/6/06 11:15 PM, SephirothX03 wrote: Did anyone actually read all of that?

Staple rule in literature: If the author didn't care enough to make it look pretty he/she has already failed the audience.

This forum is supposed to be about politics yet many won't even read just a little bit. I agree with you on this one. Maybe if you put some of the most important parts in hot pink letters then it would attract the attention of all the idiots, but then again who wants their opinions.

[rainmaker]

2hardlongscrunchedupcouldntdidntread

And I didn't know the Taliban ever belonged to Iraq. LMAO!

[Jose]

You could have just posted a link and a summary.

Don't be lazy and copy and paste.

[RedScorpion]

Well, here's the run down of the story...

- Taliban is operating in bigger divisions now.
- Afghani army and police is shit.
- Pakistan is fighting the Taliban controlled areas in it's territory, losing troops (FATA).
- Afghanistan is more dangerous than Iraq, bigger too.
- Only a few main sections are secure in there.
- NATO troops going to have to stay there 10-15 years, to be able to ensure a democratic Afghanistan is guaranteed.
- Taliban are using more suicide bombers/IEDs.
- NATO/U.S. troops need more *variety of equipment/troops* (17,000 U.S. troops now)
- And then 90% world opium supply - Afghanistan: which buys stuff for Taliban.
-----
Yep... to the author - did you even read the damn article yourself? You even wrote 'Taliban is taking backIRAQ', and wrote a pitiful summary about the article 'Yep, 9/11 bastards still there...' - all of which failed to explain what the hell the article was about in the first place.

You must have just quickly copy/pasted, and not checked your work, since the article itself is crap to read (the link even has the article not properly divided, but more readable).

Comon.

[MeSmashie]

NEWS FLASH!!!!

The Taliban never HAD Iraq you dimwit.

[rainmaker]

At 7/7/06 08:35 PM, RedScorpion wrote: Well, here's the run down of the story...

Many thanks for this.

- Taliban is operating in bigger divisions now.

Well, there may be fewer of them. It doesn't matter if they operate under four squads or one platoon, it may be the same size, but with much less terretorial breakdown. Of course, I'm fairly-sure that's not the case, or this "article" would be pretty much useless.

- Afghani army and police is shit.

Of course. It'll be forevor until we accomplish what we're aiming for. And by that time, the mission directive will be changed, again.

- Pakistan is fighting the Taliban controlled areas in it's territory, losing troops (FATA).

That's bad, but to be expected in warfare. I'd like to know how many are being lost to see exactly how bad it is. I'll go back and check it, myself.

- Afghanistan is more dangerous than Iraq, bigger too.

Then why the fuck are we in Iraq (rhetorical question)?

- Only a few main sections are secure in there.

Better a few, than none. But I wish progress was better, as said earlier, it will take forever to ensure the cause we want, which differs as the wind blows.

- NATO troops going to have to stay there 10-15 years, to be able to ensure a democratic Afghanistan is guaranteed.

x3. But wait. We're trying to insure a democratic Afghanistan? I thought we were just looking for bin Laden. This is utter bullshit.

- Taliban are using more suicide bombers/IEDs.

To be expected. They have more funding than Al-Queda.

- NATO/U.S. troops need more *variety of equipment/troops* (17,000 U.S. troops now)

Only 17,000 in Afghanistan? Over 100,000 in Iraq, but fuck no, instead of eliminating the cause of 9/11, let's do what the fuck we want!

- And then 90% world opium supply - Afghanistan: which buys stuff for Taliban.

90%?! Hot damn! I knew they were abundant in the shit, but 90%?! Good God! No wonder they have so much more money than Al-Queda!

So basically, everything in Afghanistan is understaffed and overdrawn. I'm not gonna say we're fucked, but I'd really like to know who determines which troops go where.

Thanks for breaking it down for us, RedScorpion.

[JMHX]

Now had we actually had more troops in Afghanistan, we may have been able to catch Mr. Bin-Laden and secure all of the corners of the country for international assistance to come in. Since we half-assed it by jumping into Iraq a few years after, the Taliban has surged back up and taken some key cities. That little country everyone forgot in the run-up to Saddam is going to make its presence known through our mismanagement.

[SolInvictus]

At 7/8/06 04:11 AM, JudgeMeHarshX wrote: ...That little country everyone forgot...

it definitley isn't that little though (yay, unimportant corrections on size of country!)