NATO Forces Have A Year to Turn Afghan War - Official

[laststeamtrain]

Source: Reuters

NATO Forces Have A Year to Turn Afghan War - Official

KABUL (Reuters) - Foreign forces have only a year to turn the tide of the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban have a shadow government in place that could run the country if the West fails, a senior NATO intelligence official said on Sunday.

The Afghan Taliban had expanded their influence across Afghanistan and were now running a "full-fledged insurgency" with their own "governors" in all but one of the country's provinces.

<snip>

In 2003, foreign forces dealt with 81 IEDs, that figure rose to over 7,200 for 2009, the official said. This included IEDs that had exploded and those that were found and cleared.

"This is not meant to be a joke, but whoever is their logistics chief, you know, we oughta be taking lessons from them. Because that's pretty darn good ... for an enemy insurgent force to generate that kind of capability," the official said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/27/world/international-uk-afghanistan-security.html

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"Charles really wrote the book on fire control, putting one round into the heart of things where fifty of ours might go and still not hit anything..." - Michael Herr in Dispatches.

I hear a toilet flushing. It's lives & money being flushed away. It's not making us safer in reality. It's just for 'show' in MIC world. It's for the TV kids. People who like a nice, simple story.

[bemildred]

1. Leave now, why wait? nt

[StarfarerBill]

2. Sufficient profits haven't been made yet.

Once we've bled Afghanistan dry, then we'll leave.

[bemildred]

3. I would think 8 years is enough, but for some people I guess there is no such thing as enough. nt

[StarfarerBill]

4. Nope; the country is still twitching, so there must be a few dollars left to be stolen.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

5. It's not the amount of time, it's what has been attempted in that time

As it stands right now, there are still logical steps that ought to be tried by the United States and its allies before throwing their hands up and declaring defeat.

[bemildred]

6. Yeah, it is the amount of time.

WWII took 4 years eh? But that was a different world and a different model of the US military.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

8. No, it really isn't.

This isn't WWII so expecting it to flow along a similar timeline is ridiculous. We can't simply march the some mystical Taliban or al-Qaeda capital and force them to surrender. It's a very different war that needs to be fought in very different ways.

[bemildred]

7. Just two more Friedman Units. nt