Attacks Spark Fears of Taliban Defeating NATO

[Purveyor]

Source: NPR

In Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency is spreading, even reaching some provinces in the north that had never been its strongholds. Last week, Taliban fighters attacked a district only 45 miles from the capital, Kabul. Afghans increasingly fear that NATO and Afghan forces will lose the war.

As the fighters reach more and more towns and villages, suicide attacks are on the rise in once peaceful areas.

For many, the recent attack by 100 Taliban fighters in the province of Kapisa, a largely Tajik enclave 60 miles from Kabul, illustrates the strengthening hold of the group across Afghanistan.

Some Western and Afghan officials are reluctantly admitting that the Taliban exert a lot of control over most of the southern and eastern provinces — and the group appears to be strengthening its hold on the Farah province to the west.

The Taliban has shown a growing skill for taking advantage of the corruption-plagued and weakened government of President Hamid Karzai and clan rivalries that can destabilize whole regions.

The Taliban's unholy alliance with opium smugglers, who also benefit from the government's loss of power, is another key factor in the Taliban's resurgence.

One former Taliban official and Afghan author on the group says the Taliban's goal at this stage is not to take over Afghanistan — which they neither have the manpower nor popular support for — but to force the ouster of Western troops from Afghanistan.



Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9833660

[LeFleur1]

1. And So

And so we reap more misery from Bush incompetence.
We didn't finish what we started in Afghanistan. The plan for victory was bad or non existent.
Our country is paying dearly for having this man as our president.

He dances and pounds on a bongo drum with African musicians while our country is put at further risk...much as Ceasar fiddled while Rome burned.

[reprobate]

5. "Our" country? This ceased being "our" country December 12, 2000

when the United States Extreme Court appointed George 'shitforbrains' W. Bush to the Presidency of the United States. This was a decision devoid of any precedent, in fact, in the decision the Justices(?) even stated that the decision was not to be used for precedent. It was also based on no legal case law, except for the fact that three of them had financial incentives to vote for Bush.

Personally, I blame them for everything that has happened since then, and I accuse them of TREASON. If anyone is in favor of impeachment, these should be first in line. All of the traitors, and I include Thomas, Scalia, O'Connor, and Renquist, must be impeached and indicted, tried and convicted. And yes, I know that Renquist is dead and O'Connor retired, but that doesn't exonerate them. Let them all share the same cell and dump whatever remains of Renquist in with them.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination joking about this. It is these people who first stepped over the line by taking the election out of the hands of the people and taking the decision of the election unto themselves. They were the enablers. Without their decision, and the personal financial enhancement it provided them and their families, thousands of American soldiers would still be alive, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would not have been killed, and New Orleans would still be a city to be admired. Not to mention that we would still be living under a democracy, not fascism.

As much as Bush/Cheney are to blame for all of this, they would be just a footnote in history without the abominable decision of the Extreme court. May they rot in hell for eternity for what they have wrought.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. Too busy for a response in Afghanistan -- we are surging to victory in Iraq!

Except -- things might get worse there before they get better...

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. In a few years the Taliban will be running things again & we will have forgotten the whole thing.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. . . . and Osama will still be running around the Hindu Kush

Damn, can you say Bush is a loser?

As for the Taliban, they should all be hanged with nooses fashioned from discarded burqas.

[Kagemusha]

6. Well this is boring holes in the west's heavy propaganda

Lots and lots of ranting about how the Taliban had been beaten into submission with the NATO, pre-spring offensive, Operation Achilles I think it was? And now it's turning out not to have been the big smackdown claimed, in terms of the Taliban projecting power, such as it is?

[NI4NI]

7. Bin Laden and the Taliban hide out in Pakistan

Al Qaeda and the Taliban easily sneak back and forth into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and possibly many other countries as well
Pakistan is a nuclear armed country with many people loyal to terrorists, but we are fighting in Iraq where fewer Iraqis are not and there are no WMDS.
Am I wrong in thinking that some dirty bomb in a suitcase has the best chance of coming here from some cave along the Afghani/Pakistan border that has been neglected?

[ohio2007]

8. The odds of the Taiban defeating the infidel armies

are about the same as a video being released of bin Laden calling for the defeat of a certain party canidate in '08.