Petraeus: Deal That Didn’t Include Taliban Proves Taliban ‘Weaker’

Says Taliban Mad at Orders to Fight Through Winter

In the latest effort to provide some sort of evidence for their repeated claims of progress in the endless Afghan War, General David Petraeus today put forth a deal with tribal elders in a tiny village in Sangin District as all the evidence he needed.

According to Petraeus this deal, which didn’t actually involve the Taliban but instead an agreement by some tribal elders to try to keep the Taliban out of their village in return for US aid projects, “proves” that the Taliban are weak.

Petraeus went on to cite a claim by another NATO General, Josef Blotz, that the violence would continue throughout the winter and even intensify, as something that was probably annoying a number of Taliban fighters, who are used to having the winters off.

The flimsy evidence aside, Gen. Petraeus appeared to make no attempt to explain away the NATO report that emerged last week estimating the Taliban forces at 25,000, the exact same size they were before the US escalations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.