Are the tactics now being used by the ‘U.S.-led coalition’ in Marjah and the rest of Afghanistan ‘doomed to go the way of the Soviets’? That is the argument put forward in this strongly-worded editorial from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, which paints the strategy of chasing out the Taliban and paying them off as cluelessly naive.
The Frontier Post editorial says in part:
The very depiction of the Marja offensive as a milestone in President Obama’s surge strategy is sheer deceit. Marja may be a Taliban stronghold, but so is Helmand, the province in which this district sits. And Helmand itself is only one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces held by Taliban. Twenty nine other provinces are under their sway where there are parallel administrations in place.
The Taliban themselves are no greenhorns. They’re experienced fighters. For six long years they fought their Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara adversaries, strategically outwitting them and routing them in pitched battle. In the run-up to Marja offensive there were no desertions in their ranks, despite the shrill media blitz mounted by coalition commanders. This says as much about the fighting spirit of the Taliban as it does to their commitment to faith and ideology.
Given their fighting experience, only a nincompoop could have thought the Taliban would cow down after hearing this deafening war cry. Only a dimwit would imagine that such experienced fighters could be foolish enough to frontally take on a war machine as large as the one the coalition has unleashed. Harass and tease will likely be their favored method, as indeed it has been for eons on Afghanistan’s inhospitable terrain. Here the natives have humbled formidable invading armies for centuries.
The new plan for bribery is fraught with imperfections. … This bribery plan doesn’t appear to have accounted for the very real possibility that instead of winning tribal allegiances, pay-offs may instead exacerbate tribal animus and hostility. Nor do they seem to realize that an Afghan National Army, made up almost wholly of Tajiks and Hazaras and without any really representation from the Pashtun majority, will be like a red flag in Pashtun-dominated regions. Pashtuns hold deep scorn for Tajiks and Hazaras, just as they do for Pashtuns.
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