Afghanistan: America's Failed War of Attrition (Scahill)

It is not simply a matter of ideology versus technology. The Taliban is not one unified body. The Afghan insurgency is fueled by fighters with a wide variety of motivations. Some are dedicated jihadists, but others are fighting to defend their land or are seeking revenge for the killing of family members by NATO or Afghan forces. While Al Qaeda has been almost entirely expelled from Afghanistan, the insurgency still counts a small number of non-Afghans among its ranks. Bolstering the Taliban's recruitment efforts is the perception in Afghanistan that the Taliban pays better than NATO or the Afghan army or police.

The hard reality US officials don't want to discuss is this: the cultural and religious values of much of the Pashtun population--which comprises 25–40 percent of the country--more closely align with those of the Taliban than they do with Afghan government or US/NATO forces.

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Afghanistan Newsflash: US & Peace Talks Far from "Victory" (Exum)

For the past two weeks, reputable U.S. and British newspapers have been filled with articles touting progress in negotiations between the government in Kabul and Afghanistan's major insurgent groups. On Oct. 20, for example, the New York Times reported that Afghan reconciliation talks "involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group's leadership." These articles have been accompanied by optimistic reports that the United States and its NATO allies have decimated the Taliban's leadership in southern Afghanistan.

As someone who has fought in Afghanistan on two occasions and served briefly as a civilian advisor to the NATO command group there in 2009, I hope the reports are true. The idea that an end to the fighting in Afghanistan and the involvement of the 100,000 U.S. troops in the country might be just around the corner is seductive. However, there is good reason to be skeptical of the reporting coming out of Kabul and Washington.

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