Jason Criss Howk

4 June 2019

Afghan war update

The American strategy since 2009 has been to force the Taliban to deal with the offer of peace talks as a major issue that continuously sucks the morale out of their junior leaders and low level fighters.

It’s a multi generation strategy and is how almost all insurgencies end.

Some folks who don’t understand these types of wars cannot get their head around this.

There won’t be a signing ceremony on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The Afghan forces are in the lead in this war. We are in limited support mode.

America wins this war years from now by being a long-term security and economic partner to the Afghan government and people.

That’s it. We don’t need to send large numbers of forces, just support their unstoppable Afghan security forces that have been kicking the Taliban’s ass all over the nation for the last 9 months.

This snippet from the article shows the American strategy is still having the correct effect a decade on

“The Taliban leadership had made it clear: During the cease-fire, no fighters should leave their rural strongholds to venture into cities. At this crucial stage of the war, the leaders wanted to make sure their fighters were not softened by what they might see there.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/world/asia/taliban-peace-killing.html

The Taliban are scared to death of any cease fires because they know the Afghans hate them and the Taliban fighters will drift off and go home.

The Afghan government and the international diplomatic community will continue to push for cease fires and peace talks and the Taliban will continue to lose morale and momentum. The Taliban leadership will gain no legitimacy from their attendance at peace talks…it only causes them to look more barbaric and it causes their fighters to wonder what they are dying for.

There are no magic solutions to complex wars like this.

You just have to gut it out and keep applying pressure in every direction.

Walk away, declaring it’s too hard and you are tired means declaring the Taliban and every terrorist group like them the winner.

Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

The Afghan government now has all the leverage and the Taliban are branded by the Muslim world as un-Islamic child killers.

Time is on the side of the government not Pakistan’s insurgent force. Pakistan failed in its long term strategy of stoping the creation of and professionalization of a right-sized and highly capable (and respectful) ANDSF

They (the taliban movement and their allies of butchery) have no solution for the peace offers…they know it’s going to end their movement.

It’s a matter of time and they have no winning recourse if we stay strong. If we show weakness, they can recover. Only we can help the Taliban win at this point, by running away from victory.

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