The War in Afghanistan

[TrueMetis]

What do people think of this?

Is there any chance that this leads to anything substantive?

Possibly, at the very least it could lead to more information on the Taliban. And if things go bad them we have captured some Taliban leaders.

[Ckrisz]

sloggy,

Thought so. It's easy to lump it all together.

I think it's safe to say that any Islamist radical group that seeks out AQ does want to do harm to the West. That's pretty much AQ's brand name means, after all. There are Muslim groups fighting local fights for independence or greater sovereignty - for instance the insurgency in the south of Thailand. Those groups, despite being quite disparate in command structure, have specifically disavowed any internationalization of their cause and repeatedly rejected any comparison of their fight with AQ's. Thus, we haven't really intervened at all. To think that the U.S. is out to destroy all Islamist movements due to believing they're all AQ is remarkably simplistic and frankly stupid - it commits the very sin it accuses the U.S. of doing.

Now if someone like the idiots roaming around the Sahel kidnapping and murdering Western tourists want to claim association with AQ, I think that there isn't much harm in treating them as threats. Notice that we haven't exactly launched the 82nd Airborne into Mali, though.

I don't imagine that Karzai holding jirgas with the moderate groups in the Taliban is going to get very far without real American support.

What do you think this is meant to signal? And this is not a new initiative, either.

[Ckrisz]

If they seek out AQ for help, I don't think they are AQ. Whether a particular group wants to do the US harm, or, more realistically, do our "interests" harm (:: cough cough:: ISRAEL) is probably safe to say, yes.

The most egregious example, to me, is how most of our leaders use Taliban and AQ interchangeably in speeches.

The Taliban is (1) actively seeking to kill Americans (2) targeting civilians (3) possibly the most connected with al-Qaeda of any other group in existence.

But then there's something like the various groups in the Phillipines that we are opposing that have some ties to AQ. I had to look this up to remind myself of what is going on, but the MILF (heh, milf) wants to do their autonomy thing but disavows AQ publicly. We're still fighting both the MILF and Abu Sayyaf anyway. I don't see much use in fighting the MILF, or, more importantly to our discussion, believing that they are going to attack the US of A if we don't. It just looks like a nationalist movement that has some weak ties to AQ.

First off, in the Philippines we don't really do any real fighting. We do train the Filipinos who go out and try and kill MILF, but the main focus of OEF-P was always Abu Sayyaf and Jemaa Islamiyah.

Algeria/Mali/Sahel states have been pretty proactive out there. Plus, I don't imagine the Pentagon relishes the idea of chasing salt caravans in the Sahara. :P

Sure, with our assistance.

Didn't see that. What was McChrystal's view on talks?

Pretty much the same as Petraeus'. The only points of departure I've seen since Petraeus has come in are (1) slightly looser ROE (2) stance towards fast food restaurants.

[Ckrisz]

That's not an excuse for having a sloppy speech, IMHO.

I don't really think it's sloppy to conflate the Taliban and al-Qaeda, for the reasons I stated. They may be separate organizations but certain factions are very close operationally to al-Qaeda and they certainly cooperate in Afghanistan.

Well, I just responded to you saying that we didn't involve ourselves with Islamic groups that are nationalist (not global) in their mission, and I'm saying that it's a bit greyer than that.

It's a bit grayer than us universally leaving them alone, but generally speaking the U.S. does not utilize the same level of military force it does against al-Qaeda affiliates, or even economic and political force. MILF is not the highest priority of the U.S.

Gotcha. Where do you see these talks going?

The more we keep our boots on their necks like so, the better chance these talks have of succeeding. Breaking the Taliban hold on Kandahar will not break them as a movement, but it could disempower certain Kandahar-based factions while empowering those based in other provinces, i.e. Haqqani & Co. The current Kandahari leadership may not want to be displaced like that and could come to the table.