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slims: very interesting.
regarding the objective, however: if that's the case then we really are party inside a civil war. the idea is to prevent people who oppose the taliban from being killed or imprisoned or, in some cases, worse. which means that the us has become a patron or a warband inside a patronage or warband-style political system. the us is being looked to for the same kind of protection and/or support.
but that's a situation for folk who are invested in remaining in aghanistan because...well...they live there.
it can't be a comfortable situation for the us military.
but maybe i'm missing something: what is the way out? i assume its a military defeat of the taliban? how is that gonna work? for example, has the scenario changed with the pakistan-afghan border. media coverage kinda dwindled away after the confrontation around the swat valley as if somehow that resolved something--which i suppose it did (the situation around the swat valley)--but it doesn't logically (well, tactically but based on limited information, so logically) extend to any rearrangement of factions within the pakistani military, so any rearrangement of the system that protected the taliban in the border provinces etc etc etc....if that scenario is largely unchanged (in its outline-i imagine its detail moves continually) then how is a military defeat gonna happen? and without that, how can the us possibly get out?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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