One Utah

Via Nathan Hodge on Danger Room: Gen. David McKiernan — who is commander of both the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces Afghanistan — told an audience at the Atlantic Council of the United States that he sees the insurgency divided into roughly two camps:

I like to refer to the Taliban as Taliban with a small ‘t’ — those who pick up weapons and fight for the Taliban because they are either unemployed, they are fighting for intra-tribal reasons, they are fighting because their family is intimidated, they are fighting for reasons of power, a variety of reasons — and to the Taliban with a capital ‘t,’ those who perhaps fight for ideological reasons.

Expanding later on that analogy, he said: “The idea of reconciliation at the local level of local fighters, of local influencers, potentially is a very powerful metric in Afghanistan.” General McKiernan made clear that only the Afghans themselves could arrange a comprehensive peace deal with Taliban leaders that could bring about an eventual end to the war.

President-elect Barack Obama has said he favors talks that could drive a wedge between insurgent groups. Gen. David Petraeus has made similar comments. Preliminary talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders have already taken place in Saudi Arabia.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan has more about the “reconcilable Taliban,” tribal fighters who aren’t motivated that much by ideology. They currently support or call themselves Taliban for opportunistic reasons– as long as it looks like the Taliban are the winning side. Before these fighters will switch sides the Afghan National Army, backed by the U.S. and NATO, will have to make a lot of progress in securing the population on a village by village basis.

This entry was posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Disaster, Taliban, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.