If defeating the Taliban is not our goal, what is?

After all, the idea of victory does bother the One.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/obama-victory-necessarily-goal-afghanistan/

McChrystal's admission that the Taliban are "not finite" must be held up for inspection -- first of all by General McChrystal himself.

For what he subliminally recognizes is that the problem is not a defined group -- the "Taliban" -- but rather all those who join, or support those who join, any of a hundred or a thousand similar groups. And indeed, the enemy is not only those who support, directly and indirectly, Muslim terrorist groups that are engaged in Jihad -- that is the "struggle" to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance (in places where it has already spread) of Islam. In countries of Dar al-Islam that means purifying the practice of Islam, removing those elements that those inattentive to, or insufficiently moved by, the dictates of Islam, have muddied its pure serene. In other cases, where an Infidel nation-state has been created on land that was once possessed by Muslims, as with Israel, that state must cease to exist. In still other cases, where Islam never possesssed the land nor had a presence, the mad policy of allowing Muslims in large number to emigrate to, and become immigrants in, deep within, those very places that they regard as Dar al-harb, the Domain of War, the lands where "war" is the state because they have not yet succumbed to Islam -- there the Jihad is conducted in the main, so far, not by terrorism but by Da'wa, demographic conquest, and deployment of the money weapon.

In other words, all Muslims who take Islam seriously are pursuing, or are required to pursue, the same goal of Jihad that the Taliban pursue. There are differences in strategies and in ferocities and in time-frames, just as there are differences between the Fast Jihadists of Hamas and the Slow Jihadists of Fatah in trying to figure out how best to dismember Israel and claim the whole land for Israel. But the goals are not different.

That is what General McChrystal may obscurely sense. It would be good if he, and \the other generals (I don't know about the Court Generals Gration and Jones, who seem to take swimmingly, with all their submerging ducks in a row, to the policies of appeasing Muslims in the Sudan and in regard to Israel), including Petrraeus, would focus not on the immediate (often wrong) task they have been assigned in this or that Muslim land (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and tomorrow perhaps Yemen or Somalia, and the day after tomorrow Saudi Arabia and Iran), but on the real nature, and scope, of the menace that Islam, as a force, an ideology, an inspirer of hatred and murder and mayhem, within the Infidel lands, is recognized by the most intelligent and advanced apostates -- Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Magdi Allam, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, and many others -- to be.

Obama_shahada...'I'm not tired'...'I'm all fired up and ready to go'...

High crimes and misdemeanors? Rasool Obama's administration seems to be loaded with them...How many are needed?

In case any of you have not been reading the dispatches from Micheal Yon, the courageous blogger who has embedded himself with British and American troops in Iraq and now Afghanistan, his up-close-and-personal look at the conflict there brings home one inescapable conclusion: at least insofar as the Pashto-speaking south and west are concerned, the enemy IS the Afghan people. The insurgents are largely local, young and old, culled from villages and towns throughout the region.

For the record, I am NOT an advocate for withdrawal, not because I believe we can win, but because withdrawal from Afghanistan could very well become the tipping point that allows the Taliban to capture Pakistan and acquire its nuclear arsenal. Still, if the lessons of history have taught us anything, it is that Afghanistan is a graveyard for foreign invaders.

The Afghan question is perhaps the only issue in which I sympathize with Obama; his reticence in making a decision on troop increases is certainly understandable. It is truly a lose/lose situation.

What can we expect? Temporary containment in Af'stan. That is all. And that is all we can expect elsewhere too. The US / NATO cannot police the world's Islamists forever and the Islamists know it. They are counting on it. When they say Islam will dominate, they mean it, because they see no real threat to their existence, in the long term. The Taliban are simply a manifestation of something else. Islam. If no one understands and addresses the hate factory, Islam, expect more of same, until we're all broke.

Andrew McCarthy has correctly described the hopeless doom of the situation.

Mr. Obama wants above all for the Islamic world to "like us." He will continue to bankrupt the United States by throwing money at this problem. And the brainwashed from birth Mohammedans in Afghanistan and elsewhere will gladly absorb all the nation-building jizya we throw their way, with not a hint of gratitude or cultural reciprocity. In fact, they will despise us as gullible and fearful weaklings.

The saddest thing is the betrayal of our military, now forbidden to do their fundamental job of finding, closing with, and destroying the enemy. There is no enemey any more! There is no war! Our military are now to be noble and good nation-builders, not nasty and violent soldiers. And the Muslims, because they are taught so in the Koran and in the example of Mohammed, will hate our military men and women, and our entire nation, ever more intensely--for trying to shake Muslim faith through good works. This utter contempt will grow every day we stay there, and will grow stronger with every dollar we spend there.

Quarantine the Islamic world. Give them what they say they want. Force them to live in their own Islamic wretchedness forever.

"If defeating the Taliban is not our goal, what is?" I would think defeating Islam should be our ultimate goal since it is the ultimate enemy of the West at this point in man's history. This will most likely be accomplished not by vanquishing it in battle, though battles will have to be fought, but rather by discrediting it as much as Nazism and Marxism have been discredited. Eventually, Islam must be widely seen as an aberrancy of thought not to be accorded any true respect. Should this not happen, then the world is very likely in store for a new dark age.

"Nevertheless, we have chosen not to address the source, which is Islamist ideology..."

Islamism is Islam

The distinction is a modern western, not islamic, concept.

The sad thing is that it is a lose-lose for Obama. He would love to rewind the clock; would love it if the USA were never be in these hell-holes like Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe he knows that it's all pointless and doomed to failure. But a too-quick withdrawl risks the remaining troops; invites public condemnation and torpedoes his re-election prospects.

He'll get dragged along by inertia and political considerations and continue flushing blood and treasure in the crap holes called Afghanistan and Iraq. And the real enemy which is Islam will properly obfuscated.

After re-election in '12 he'll pull the plug on this joke and take the fall-out. If nothing else, he'll do it for his Muslim bros.

What is this "mission" of ours that must be fulfilled?

Boy, this is an easy one: The first step in the mission is to install a Sharia gov't operating on U.S. taxpayer money and heroin sales. Done.

*** Bukhari Vol 7 Bk 67 Nbr 427 ***

The second step is to get the Taliban to play nice with the putative Afghan democratic civil government. Not quite yet done. Still need for the Pak Army to run fake military ops in Waziristan for consumption by CNN and FoxNews viewers. Being done as we speak.

*** Bukhari Vol 2 Bk 24 Nbr 555***

The final step is to fully merge the Taliban with the fake democratic Afghan civils. This process will require a long series of backroom mtgs involving the trading of favors, rubbing of oil lamps, and exchanges of brown bags stuffed with U.S. taxpayer cash. Not done but do-able.

*** 8:58 ***

This last step is where Prez Osama is seizing up. As anybody can see from what's going on in the run up to the fake healtchcare crisis, he is just not comfy without transparency in gov't process. Something about ethics.

*** Ishaq 519 ***

If only the Moslems in Afghan would behave in a civilized manner for once. Stone Age behavior using modern weapons and ammmo broadcast over cable TV is an Inconvenient Truth.

To set up the U.S. taxpayer funded Sharia state that we all want so badly will require some give-and-take from these dudes wearing the funny caps over their scraggly beards.

*** 5:41 ***

Then we can declare victory and pull our boys home to the States and UK. A ton of blood and treasure will be the cost, but the goal is worth it. That's the mission.

What does Mr. McCarthy mean by "Islamist" ideology? Is Islamist ideology something in Andrew McCarthy's view, wholly separate and apart from the religion (or to some, the ideology) of Islam?

WASHINGTON – A scientist who allegedly tried to sell classified secrets to Israel had worked on the U.S. government's Star Wars missile shield program, and the Justice Department declared Tuesday that he had tried to share some of the nation's most guarded secrets.

Arrested in an FBI sting operation, Stewart David Nozette was jailed without bond and accused in a criminal complaint of two counts of attempting to communicate, deliver and transmit classified information.

Had he succeeded in passing classified information, Nozette would have done grave damage to the nation's security because the information he possesses includes "some of our most guarded secrets," assistant U.S. attorney Anthony Asuncion said in court. He did not elaborate.

IF YOU HAVE ANY LINGERING DOUBTS THAT YOUR OWN PRESIDENT
IS A MUSLIM TRAITOR, THIS SHOULD DISPEL THEM.

OBAMA ASKED MUELLER AT FBI TO LOOK FOR SOMEONE TO SET-UP
WITH FALSE SPYING CHARGES TO BULLY ISRAEL AND JEWS INTO
KOWTOWING TO OBAMA...THIS IS CLASSIC OBAMA THUGGERY.

WHY IS THIS A SET-UP ?

1. Israel is already a signatory to the Reagan-era Star Wars treaty and therefore is allowed all access and participation in Star Wars technology; Israel and US
have been collaborating on Star Wars for decades.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in Nozette's purview
that would have been off-limits to Israel.

2. The FBI and DOJ depositions don't even say Israel tried
to recruit Nozette. Mueller acknowledges that Israel didn't.

3. Israel does not need to recruit Nozette. They already
HAVE Star Wars technology. Israel signed an agreement with
Bush FORBIDDING THEM FROM FUTURE COUNTERESPIONAGE ACTIVITIES
IN THE US. Do you honestly think Israel would break that agreement and risk historic ties with the US ?

4. Does any moron honestly believe Nozette can't tell the
difference between an obnoxious FBI agent pretending to
be Mossad and a real Israeli ? He is not that stupid...
When the FBI is an abject failure at counterespionage and yet they can imitate Israelis ? Maybe Mueller watches too
many episodes of NCIS.

5. There was no prior evidence of Nozette having ever done
anything illegal, let alone break his security clearance
or spy. There were no prior internal investigations on this guy (this is NOT analogous in any way to the Pollard Case).

6. Why did the FBI entrap Nozette when there was no prior
evidence of his illegality or even attending any functions
where Israelis were present ?

7. Isn't it interesting that under Obama there seems not to
be any Chinese spies, North Korean spies, Russian spies, Iranian spies, Cuban spies, Venezuelan spies, Arab spies and Muslim spies, only somehow Israeli spies. Does any sane person honestly believe that Israel is the only country that currently conducts counterintelligence operations in the US PARTICULARLY WHEN EX-PM EHUD OLMERT EXPRESSLY SIGNED AN AGREEMENT WITH GEORGE BUSH SAYING THAT ISRAEL WOULD PROMISE TO REFRAIN FROM ANY FURTHER SPYING ACTIVIES IN THE US ? WHO DO YOU BELIEVE ? ISRAEL OR OBAMA ?

Every patriotic American should be OUTRAGED AND DISGUSTED
AT THIS BRAZEN AND BULLYING ATTEMPT BY OBAMA TO BROWBEAT
THE JEWISH-AMERICAN COMMUNITY INTO SUBMISSION BY THE USUAL
ANTI-SEMITIC SCAPEGOATING.

Obama is a pathetic pile of DUNG......WITH APOLOGIES TO FECES...

The Taliban are getting too much support from ordinary people in Afghanistan. That's what I learned from Robert when were walking in the park in Berlin. I never thought that this whole nation building crap would do us any good, but I thought that the Taliban could be defeated. But seeing now, that their number is more on the rise than on the decline I agree with my co-posters that this is a lose/lose situation. But withdrawel is not an option, either, as Cornelius pointed out, as there is the danger of the Taliban acquiring Porkistan's nukes. Bernard-Henri Lévi had already realised that in his book "Qui a tué Daniel Pearl?", released in 2003. No modern technology in the hands of pre-stone age morons. Whenever I see a woman with a headscarf using a cell phone, it really pisses me off.

The only solution I see is not to fight the symptoms of the disease, but the root cause which is the fascist ideology of Islam. We've got to fight against it all over this planet, by all means military, ideological, theological. Only then we can win.

epistemology :We've got to fight against it all over this planet, by all means military, ideological, theological. Only then we can win.

Agreed. Once the world sees islam for what it is we can give it the same status as fascism.

Won't be long now.

They claim to love Death over life. Let us not be squeamish about giving them what they desire. Irregardless of the number.

Make examples of the Taliban to the Muslim World as to what we will not accept on any terms.

When Pakistan sends its Army in, Muslims Flee in the Hundreds of Thousands. While never seeming to hear of any Civilian Deaths.

Footage of our Troops in action always seem to have Muslims wandering around like they have some immunity to what is going on. With Civilian causalities abounding.

While Pakistan is taking some action, what are our Forces doing??? We couldn't possibly think about putting our Forces on the other side of the border and prevent the Enemy from running away now could we?

We couldn't possibly think of spraying the Poppy Fields with ROUND-UP the last 4 years now could we. An A-10 tricked out with spray tanks could have done a lot of damage all these years. Exposed a slew of the Enemy trying to defend their Cash Crop at the same time. But Noooo.

When we first went into Afcrapistan, they feared US enough to stand and die or run away. With 15,000 boots on the Ground.

Obama drew a BIG FAT LINE in the Sands of AFCRAPISTAN and now he wants to run away.

The Enemy will always be an Enemy if they know you'll never do anything about it.

If Obama was really a Commander in Chief, he would send the 40,000 Troops with a clear mandate to kill people. Backing up all his BS and it's ramifications from his Campaign.

With all the experience in Tribal asymmetrical warfare our Country has, you would think some one would have a clue.

Cornelius,
Afghanistan and Pakistan are separate countries. Why do you think our staying in Afghanistan will keep the Taliban from taking over Pakistan? Why wouldn't we be yet another inducement for more people to join the Taliban? Pakistan is a lot more than just the tribal areas. If the Pakistani military would let the Taliban get its hands on nuclear weaponry then all is lost, anyway.
Our military should leave Afghanistan, Pakistan and every Muslim country our soldiers are in. They are trying to help people who don't want to be helped and who are not willing to help themselves or accept any responsibility for their own country. It's a waste of our national treasure - our young men and women.
If these people really wanted to be rid of terrorists, they would be leading the allied forces to terrorist hideouts and pointing them out. Instead they shelter them and blame us when civilians are killed. They blame us when we fight and they'll blame us when we leave. So let them blame us. Why should we care what they think? Let Afghanistan be THEIR graveyard, not ours.
Obama gets no sympathy here. Sure this is a difficult situation but candidate Obama said all last year that Afghanistan was "the good war". Let him live up to his words or else expose himself to the world as nothing but a liar and a hypocrite, never to be believed again. The buck stops with him. Stay or go, the decision is his. He can't duck it.

PMK,

The Pashto-speaking tribesmen who make up the bulk of the Taliban also inhabit Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and its Federally Administrated Tribal Zones. It is precisely the sanctuaries and the arms-pipeline provided by the Pakistani Pashto regions that keep the insurgency lubricated. Were the Taliban to recapture Afghanistan, the situation would be reversed, and Afghanistan would become the conduit for the conquest of Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban own the NWFP, have a massive presence in Pakistan's Baluchistan province (Mullah Omar operates out of Quetta, the Baluchi capital), and are growing in strength even in the Punjab, Pakistan's heartland. America's withdrawal from the fight in Afghanistan will insure the rapid capitulation of the Pakistani government, resulting either in its outright defeat, or in its bringing the Taliban into the government.

I think there are many compelling arguments as to why we should walk away from Afghanistan, but let's be clear, if we do, it will not be without repercussions...repercussions that MAY be global in nature, and POTENTIALLY catastrophic.

The goal of nation-building is absurd if we are building and maintaining a sharia nation. Afghanistan is a sharia nation, and our idiotic leaders helped re-establish this. We need to stop this self-destructive, counterproductive "project" in Afghanistan ASAP. We need to pull out the vast majority of our troops. We need to direct a small, potent military operation using drones, missiles, air-strikes, and special forces, dedicated to destroying al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership.

Moreover, there is little need for us to fight the rather amorphous Taliban directly, given that there were already Islamic groups (e.g., Northern Alliance) fighting the Taliban. We need only provide the minimal and restricted military and intelligence support to these anti-Taliban groups in specific operations, if our goal is to keep the Taliban in check.

While I don't agree with Andrew McCarthy's suggestion about taking this military war more broadly, I do agree with him on this:

"And as if we’d learned nothing from the ravages against us, the process absurdly assumes that Islam — rather than being a major part of the problem — is an asset that we can turn to our advantage. If such a process could work (it can’t), it would take decades, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and cause an unknowable number of American casualties."

However, I have no problem with Obama's withholding of troops in light of the election fraud. Harper and Brown are in agreement with Obama on this. (Their reasoning here is reportedly that our troops should not be (perceived to be) fighting to uphold an illegitimate government in Afghanistan.)

To argue the same in relation to sharia, i.e., that we ought to withhold troops (and money) indefinitely from Afghanistan on the grounds that it is a sharia state and that we should not be supporting a sharia state, would require the western governments to admit to their publics that they made a huge mistake in allowing sharia back into the Afghan constitution. Yet sharia is a far bigger problem than an instance of election fraud. After all, election fraud occurs even in advanced western countries and is a problem that can be monitored and remedied. Indeed, it is being monitored and remedied in Afghanistan, due to western pressure. The bigger and better reason to pull out and cut our losses in Afghanistan is sharia: No troops should be fighting, putting their lives on the line, to uphold a sharia government.

For the Afghan mission (incl. nation-building etc) to be perceived as legitimate by western publics, for starters sharia would have to be abolished and prohibited, and there would have to be reasons to believe that a western-style democracy (with its version of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, equality, etc.) would be a viable project. These minimal requirements are not met. But Afghans want sharia and won't allow it to be removed. Polls indicate that the majority of Afghans want us there (we are, after all, supporting their sharia state). Think about that: They want sharia, and they want us there. In contrast, polls in the west indicate that most people want us out of Afghanistan.

PMK: Cornelius has replied to your challenge, and effectively so as is standard for him. What say you? Fascinating give and take here, something which is becoming an increasing rarity in this Age of Nonsense in which we live.

In any case, awaiting your reply, as I should think Cornelius is. Hey, ain't Jihad Watch a great place or what? Kudos again To Robert Spencer. Gotta' love free discourse, so prevalent in what is still left of the Western world and so non-existent in that repressive area on earth where Islam is predominant.

Cornelius and Wellington:
Thanks for your input.

1. Whether we stay or go, it will be spun as a victory for the jihadists. Are we supposed to fight until we kill ourselves? For what? For whom? Who in this world cares if the US is destroyed in Afghanistan? NATO? PLEASE!!!!
I suggest we leave with heads held high. We gave it our best shot. We can't win with the rules of engagement we have been forced to fight under. We are fighting civilians. Whether we like it or not, al Qaeda fighters and Taliban fighters are, technically anyway, civilians.

2. The Taliban is Pakistani in origin. Pakistan CREATED the Taliban. From what you say Cornelius, the NWFP are essentially binational. Even if we kept the Taliban from retaking Afghanistan, that doesn't stop them from threatening Islamabad. Only the Pakistani military can prevent this. WE cannot fight Pakistan's war for it. We can't fight Afghanistan's war for it. WE TRIED. We've been there eight years. Either these people want to be rid of the Taliban or they don't.
If they do, they sure have a funny way of showing it. If they don't, we could stay there for a century and it would do no good. Tomorrow, the next day and the day after that, we will still be infidels and occupiers.

3. Given its remoteness, can't the NWFP be quarantined? Prevent traffic from going in or out. We can't do anything about the people living in those caves but can't we keep them from entering the major population centers?
I say "we" but I really mean the local governments. It's not America's job to police the area.

4. Quarantine can be used in a lot of ways. Everyone is worried about that area becoming home to al Qaeda again and possibly being the new staging ground for terrorist attacks. They can't attack what they can't get to. NO ONE who enters Afghanistan for terrorist training should EVER leave. No one who enters Pakistan should ever return to the US or Europe. The onus is on the West to pick its friends.

5. Pakistan is not a reliable ally. Why would we trust them ever to fight the Taliban? If they do, they will have to kill all members of the Taliban. They won't. Pakistan is playing us like a violin. It has been a supporter of terrorism for decades and now we act like it's a victim. IT"S NOT!

6. Our failure to combat radical Islam will indeed have global consequences but fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan will not solve the problem. The root cause of all of this is Islam itself. It's not a few tribes in the mountains in central Asia. We could kill everyone in Afghanistan and we wouldn't be one bit safer. They are still in the Middle East, Indonesia and many other places and they are still coming to the US and Europe. We have to cut ourselves off from THEM. Trade with them, have tea, but don't let them into our lands anymore.

7. Globalization is a big part of the problem. Once you could isolate a country and starve it financially. No more. Our weaponry aside, we have done quite a bit of unilateral disarmament. Our enemies can bomb marketplaces but we have to be careful about the way we handle a BOOK!

Enough venting. As you can see, I find this quite frustrating. Sometimes I just wish we could tell the world where to go.
My main wish is that we implement a policy of MAD - Mecca's Assured Destruction. I have no interest in killing Muslims. I suggest we leave the Muslim world and let them fend for themselves - with no support of any kind from the US ever again. Our policy must be that the next attack on the USA will result in the leveling of Islam's main city - Mecca. Let them choose to live in peace or see the birthplace of Mohammed reduced to dust. The choice is theirs. What do the Saudis want - to continue to benefit from the hajj or to take over the West? Again, the choice is theirs.

PMK,

You want to quarantine an entire region, do you? And do you actually believe the Pakistanis - currently engaged in a civil war with parts of this region - would actually accept such a plan? How would we implement it without Pakistan's approval? Invade Pakistan? Hardly the logic of a withdrawal advocate.

You want to nuke Mecca, do you? Well, I'm sure most of us in the anti-Jihad have had such fantasies, but then again, most of us are rational enough to recognize such fantasies for what they are.

And yes, the NWFP IS indeed bi-national. The Pashtos who inhabit it are by language, ethnicity and culture identical to the people of 60% of Afghanistan. If the Afghans fall to the Taliban, that country will become a springboard for the push to Talibanize Pakistan, with all the attendant implications (i.e., the nuclear question). As it is, the Afghan Taliban have their hands full fighting the coalition.

As for frustration, I feel it on multiple levels, not just for the ineffectualness of the anti-Jihad in America and around the world, but also for the advocates here who rail and vent and offer bromides and "solutions" that have not a chance in hell of ever becoming actual policy.

While talking about Taliban, it's important to bear in mind that there are at least four major factions of Taliban, of which three are pro-Pakistan, but anti-West - Mullah Omar's, Hekmatyar's, Haqqani's. These latter are the groups which are under Pakistan's control in varying measure.

The so-called Afghan group of Mullah Omar is the army's dear progeny and is periodically put up on the negotiating table as the "moderate" and "good" Taliban, by Pakistan and its gullible friends in Washington and London. It was the Afghan group that was ruling Afghanistan with the iron hand of Sharia-extreme, along with Hekmatyar and providing all facilities and shelter to Al-Qaeda, till they were routed in November, 2001. Logically, they ought to have been chased into Pakistan and its leadership destroyed along with Al-Qaeda's, but Gen Musharraf's masterful volte-face stymied the NATO forces. The NATO forces were led by their noses to snatch a stalemate from the jaws of victory.

This gave time to the various Taliban factions to survive and then the dumb war in Iraq, gave them time to regroup, recruit, re-arm and reorganise themselves better. Now it's a waiting game and they, along with Pakistan hope that it's only a matter of time before they make a triumphant entry into the corridors of power in Afghanistan, thanks to the muddled thinking, lack of a clear objective and monumental botch-ups of the West.

The only anti-West group which is also anti-Pakistani government (because of its perceived betrayal - the tame acquiescence to the US/NATO intervention in Afghanistan)is the Tehrik-e-Taliban of Mehsud, against which the Pakistan army has now been forced to act. This also explains why the US has been particularly successful with its drone strikes against this group - it gets better intelligence from Pakistan.

Interesting input, Slamdunk. My response:

1) Hekmatyar was never part of Mullah Omar's Afghanistan, as you assert. Though the former PM was Pakistan's man in Afghanistan, they abandoned him for the Taliban, who drove him into exile in Iran back in '96, where he sat complacently until the Coalition invasion in 2001. It was only then that he reformulated the Hezbi-i-Islami and today fights the Coalition forces alongside the Taliban.

2) Whether or not Iraq was a "dumb war" is a matter of opinion. But one thing is fact: Saddam Hussein and his sons, who were avowed enemies of America and active facilitators of terror against Israel, no longer sit on the throne of Iraq's oil billions. Whatever the proclivities of the current regime, no one can claim it is actively facilitating terror against Israel or the West.

3) As for break-down of the Taliban into pro and anti Pakistani factions, it's important to note that Mehsud's group is harboring Al Qaeda, the same Al Qaeda that Mullah Omar's group abetted for as long as they were in power. In short, there are tactical differences between these groups, some dependent on Pakistan, others fighting the Pakistanis, but should the Coalition withdraw, it is a certainty that

a) Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban

b) the Taliban in Afghanistan will figure decisively in helping facilitate the Talibanization of Pakistan

One can credibly argue that these eventualities are not worth our continued presence in Afghanistan, but it would be foolish to argue that they won't come to pass.

Cornelius, thanks. I just wanted to clear a common misperception that the Taliban is one group.

1.You are right about Hekmatyar. It was sloppy on my part to put him alongside Mullah Omar's Taliban as a ruler of Afghanistan. Indeed, he fled to Iran in 1996 as soon as Pakistan decided that Mullah Omar's Taliban was ready to do business in Afghanistan. But he is back in FATA since 2002, fighting the US/NATO forces and has pledged loyalty to MO, AQ (and Pakistan).

2. Iraq was a dumb war because

a. It took the eyeballs off Afghanistan/ Pakistan theater and allowed the Taliban to regroup and re-emerge as a much greater, more vicious threat.

b. It destroyed a relatively anti-fundamentalist, anti-Iran State, which did not pose an immediate threat to the West and replaced that by a sectarian mess with fundamentalists of all sorts calling the shots and its rulers beholden to Iran. It has given the congenitally fundamentalist, hostile-to-US Iran the time and ability to brazenly develop nuclear and missile capabilities, which will now have to be countered by the West, with difficulty and great risk, if at all.

3. I agree with both your conclusions. However, although the Taliban and its factions will eventually take charge of Afghanistan, once the Coalition forces abandon the land to its miserable fate, Pakistan is too savvy to wait for the monster to devour it. Very likely it will facilitate the push to India by the Taliban and other zealots. Whatever the outcome, this will thoroughly destabilise the region with two armed-to-the-teeth, nuclear powers.

A couple of messages will go out loud and clear through all the lands, if the West abandons Afghanistan:
1. Do not trust the West to display any commitment to any values or cause.
2. The powerful West has been defeated by the soldiers of Islam. It has run away with its tail between its legs. Now it's time to chase it to its lair and crush it.

Cornelius, thanks. I just wanted to clear a common misperception that the Taliban is one group.

1.You are right about Hekmatyar. It was sloppy on my part to put him alongside Mullah Omar's Taliban as a ruler of Afghanistan. Indeed, he fled to Iran in 1996 as soon as Pakistan decided that Mullah Omar's Taliban was ready to do business in Afghanistan. But he is back in FATA since 2002, fighting the US/NATO forces and has pledged loyalty to MO, AQ (and Pakistan).

2. Iraq was a dumb war because

a. It took the eyeballs off Afghanistan/ Pakistan theater and allowed the Taliban to regroup and re-emerge as a much greater, more vicious threat.

b. It destroyed a relatively anti-fundamentalist, anti-Iran State, which did not pose an immediate threat to the West and replaced that by a sectarian mess with fundamentalists of all sorts calling the shots and its rulers beholden to Iran. It has given the congenitally fundamentalist, hostile-to-US Iran the time and ability to brazenly develop nuclear and missile capabilities, which will now have to be countered by the West, with difficulty and great risk, if at all.

3. I agree with both your conclusions. However, although the Taliban and its factions will eventually take charge of Afghanistan, once the Coalition forces abandon the land to its miserable fate, Pakistan is too savvy to wait for the monster to devour it. Very likely it will facilitate the push to India by the Taliban and other zealots. Whatever the outcome, this will thoroughly destabilise the region with two hostile, armed-to-the-teeth, nuclear powers.

A couple of messages will go out loud and clear through all the lands, if the West abandons Afghanistan:
1. Do not trust the West to display any commitment to any values or cause.
2. The powerful West has been defeated by the soldiers of Islam. It has run away with its tail between its legs. Now it's time to chase it to its lair and crush it.