About The Latest Afghanistan Handwringing

Feb 1st, 2012

First of all, it's not news that members of Pakistan's ISI intelligence service are in bed with radical elements of the Taliban. Second of all, if we stayed in Afghanistan for another hundred years, they would begin destroying each other not long after we departed. This is what we are seeing in Iraq already. Eventually, we are going to have to think about doing more nation building at home. In fact, discussion of that kind have begun in earnest on both sides of the aisle. Now comes an "explosive report" detailing the imminent return to power of the Taliban aided and abetted by the ISI. Sigh.

Reuters has some coverage about this "report" which is essential reading for anyone before they start running around in panic-circles and yelling that the sky is falling:

"Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the existence of the document, reported by Britain's Times newspaper and the BBC. But he said it was not a strategic study.

"The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions," he said. "It's not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis." EMPHASIS OURS

Get it? This prisoner braggadocio. This is not the kind of thing on which so much as a single change in policy particulars should be based. It will be interesting to see if the neo-conservative permawar crowd, which is always harping on the need to 'listen to military,' actually listens to the military on this one.