According to anonymous US officials, the latest intelligence estimate on Afghanistan reveals that once again, the size of the Taliban insurgency is growing dramatically.
The intelligence community now believes that the Taliban has 25,000 full time fighters on its side, an increase of 5,000 over the estimate from the previous year and quite a hike considering the the large numbers of Taliban the US claims to have killed on a fairly regular basis.
The 25,000 doesn’t include the group’s part time supporters, people paid to provide support, or the various gangs which have ties to the group. It also doesn’t include the assorted “Pakistani Taliban” factions which though they may have common cause with the Taliban are not affiliated with them.
Officials cite the growing discontent with the corrupt Afghan government for the group’s resiliency, but with President Obama apparently poised to announce another dramatic increase in American troops on the ground it must be asked what they hope to accomplish, as the last precipitous troop increase has only increased the size of the force fighting against them.
Wow… what a huge increase in numbers of Talibans and al-Quida members. As the U.S claims that they are killing alot of these Terrorists everday but their numbers just keep on growing… what is happaning, are people really joining in the fight… in vice versa most of the U.S soldiers and veterans are being dishonorably discharge or court marshall from their jobs….um… the math is adding up.
Jorden, the increase is in local insurgents (Taliban and other groups), not al-qaida. Even the US admits there's only about 100 al-qaida in the whole country. The increase shouldn't be surprising considering two points. First, they've had 8 years of "training" in which to learn how to fight the occupation forces. Trial and error is a brutal way to learn in war, but that's what happens. Second, there are very many male children in Afghanistan and half a million of them reach fighting age every year. That's a demographic that's just unstoppable. Even worse, you now have a whole generation of young people who grew up under occupation.
As was(is) the case in Iraq, this is becoming a war of liberation for many Afghan "taliban" who are simply opposed to a foreign force — and an infidel one at that — "occupying" their country.
Don't tread on me, many of these folks are saying.
When will we learn that it doesn't pay to fight other people's wars?
The use of U. S. Armed Forces to prosecute the war in Afghanistan fails to understand the fundamental limitation of our soldiers in the effort. Visit The Butter-Cutter's 'verbal shrapnel" rich domain for his insight into this flaw at: http://www.thebutter-cutter.com/Protecting_Afghan…
The Karzai "government" is the occupation government installed by the US military. Why does the US not cleanup its creation? Is this the American style democracy that so many have been killed for? If the US cannot even control its own paid-for "government" what hope is there for "victory"?