My prediction is shared by the famous Seymour Hersch. Good thing is that our army is doing something about Pakistani rogue ISI and army. Right now, the peration in NW Pakistan (South Wazirstan) is only dealing with Taliban that got out of control and targeting Pakistan instead of US and India. They are not touching or they have no intention t o do anything about the Taliban and AQ living in Northern Wazirstan which target US and NATO. Just watch Fareed Zakaria GPS interview with Musharaf today (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gp...

Most of my time in those Middle East areas was many years ago now. But the failure of many of America’s policy-makers to understand the culture and attitudes of the region remains, sadly, similarly poor. Our beliefs that “they want what we want” are not so true much of the time.

One important factor, of course, is the differences of religion. A good book on this is “Making War In The Name of God.” By Christopher Catherwood. These differences color our respective ideas of how to approach our relations with each other, and with other countries. No single, silver-bullet-approach will likely work. And after all of these years already, no one has found that magic touch yet. So, I fear we’ll just slog along until we get lucky or stumble into something that works. That has often been the way history has unfolded in these matters.

Or should we just vote on whose God is the correct one to follow? Whose side is He really on? Why hasn’t He been clearer on whose side He favors? Maybe He hasn’t made up His mind yet? Stay tuned.

I’m just glad my time in that region is over while all governments thrash this out. I remain a fascinated observer, and wonder whose God will come out the champion again? For only a while, of course. This stuff never really ends. In the end, “Might Makes Right.” And the winners pick who the best God is. At least for a while.

I think Drake 1 has it about right. The way to fight the Taliban, which as Drake 1 said in his first post which is already fractured is to dry up the source of new recruits.

I think the answer to keeping you men in the village is to show them that all is not hopeless and to help villages achieve a self supporting economy with a sustainable base at the village level.

This require such soft counterinsurgency as bring in agricultural assistance, helping set up channels of crops getting to a market, it included credit and small loans, it include assistance in setting up tradesmen mechanics, artisans and service enterprises, providing engineering assistance and technical and material support in repairing and building the village infrastructure.

Many who support a more robust military presence and an Iraqi solution of kill ‘em till there are no bad guys left often quote Mao when he said ” Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” they forget the rest of the quote which says.”… Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns we can create Party organizations… We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture. create mass movements.”

The United States can use the gun to create as Mao said the Party (Government), Party organization (economic development), create cadre (local police and protection from the Taliban), create schools (for both boys and girls), create culture (markets for locally produced/made goods and produce and village level democratic institutions), create mass movements (Afghanistan into the 21st. Century). This seem to be a better way then just killing the Taliban, letting the Taliban regroup and then doing it all over again.

The United States has more weapons in it arsenal then just the gun, lets use them.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

My prediction: The present operation to clean up NW pakistan is simply dipersing the AQ and Taliban, so far hardly 100 bad guys have been killerd according to all the media reports from past few weeks, then, where are the 10000 Taliban+AQ know to be there in NW Pakistan? They are probably moved (by Pakistani ISI) elsewhere (Punjab, Sindh or Kashmir). After they occupy the NW and declare victory they collect our money. We are going to be left with the bad guys again.

Calls for additional forces also risk alienating the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), both of which have signaled deep reservations about a possible American escalation in Afghanistan. These two institutions are critical partners in U.S. efforts to combat al Qaeda and ultimately will determine the intensity of any offensive against militants. But they also fear growing American and Indian influence in Afghanistan. The Obama administration must be careful, then, to ensure that escalation does not encourage the military and ISI to view extremist militancy more as a defensive buffer against such influence than as an internal nemesis
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What’s this recent evidence that Rick Nelson speaks of?