UN Official: US Goals in Afghanistan ‘Incredibly Hard’ To Achieve

'However Many of Them You Kill, There'll Be More'

UN Taliban-al-Qaeda Sanctions Monitoring Committee head and former British intelligence official Richard Barrett today warned that the US goals in Afghanistan were “incredibly hard” to achieve and that a way ought to be found to engage the Taliban politically.

“However many of them you kill, there’ll be more coming over the hill,” warned Barrett, adding that he thought the justification for Britain’s involvement in the war was “debatable.”

Barrett’s comments will likely add to the growing number of questions about the war strategy, as Pentagon officials maintain, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the military operations are going well.

But Barrett’s concerns aren’t military, but rather political, saying that the US goals require a political solution and that all the US has at its disposal are military means.

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.