Debate over progress in Afghanistan

Washington Post:

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"There is a key debate going on now between the military -- especially commanders on the ground -- and the intelligence community and some in the State Department about how we are doing," said one Afghanistan expert who has consulted with the National Security Council as it continues to "comb through conflicting reports" about the conflict.

Over the past year, all combat encounters against the Taliban have ended with "a very decisive defeat" for the extremists, Brig. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., commander of the U.S. task force training the Afghan army, told reporters this month. The growing number of suicide bombings against civilians underscores the Taliban's growing desperation, according to Livingston and other U.S. commanders.

But one senior intelligence official, who like others interviewed was not authorized to discuss Afghanistan on the record, said such gains are fleeting. "One can point to a lot of indicators that are positive . . . where we go out there and achieve our objectives and kill bad guys," the official said. But the extremists, he added, seem to have little trouble finding replacements.

Although growing numbers of foreigners -- primarily Pakistanis -- are joining the Taliban ranks, several officials said the primary source of new recruits remains disaffected Afghans fearful of opposing the Taliban and increasingly disillusioned with their own government.

Overall, "there doesn't seem to be a lot of progress being made. . . . I would think that from [the Taliban] standpoint, things are looking decent," the intelligence official said.

Senior White House officials privately express pessimism about Afghanistan. There is anxiety over the current upheaval in neighboring Pakistan, where both the Taliban and al-Qaeda maintain headquarters, logistical support and training camps along the Afghan border. But "in all honesty, I think it is too early to tell right now" whether political turmoil will undermine what U.S. officials already consider lackluster counterinsurgency efforts by Pakistani forces, the senior administration official said.

At the moment, several officials said, their concern is focused far more on the domestic situation in Afghanistan, where increasing numbers are losing faith in Karzai's government in Kabul. According to a survey released last month by the Asia Foundation, 79 percent of Afghans felt that the government does not care what they think, while 69 percent felt that it is not acceptable to publicly criticize the government.

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We are still suffering from the Clinton cuts in our military in Afghanistan too. The reasons Afghans might feel insecure is that we and the Afghans do not have a high enough force to space ration to protect the people from the Taliban. We keep having to buy the same real estate more than once because we do not have sufficient forces to hold areas that are taken. It is the same problem we had in Iraq before the surge of forces. It is another example of the failure of tghe small foot print doctrine in a counterinsurgency situation.

Still the results of firefights with the Taliban have been much more decisive than they were in presurge Iraq. The Taliban have been taking unsustainable losses and have had to supplement, especially their leadership, with foreign fighters of dubious quality. The real key to defeating the Taliban will be what happens in Pakistan. If the government can bring an effective counterinsurgency effort against the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in that country, it will have a cascading effect on the ability of the Taliban to sustain their operations in Afghanistan.

We also need to come to grip with the drug production that is financing enemy operations. There is a belief by many, including the British, that if we wipe out the Opium crop we will create more enemies, but these people are already enemies if they are financing the enemy. We need to find a way to take them out of production are take them out as enemies. It might make more sense to target the people doing the production than the crop itself.