The war effort news from Afghanistan has been backgrounded by - well - just about everything. However, there are a few of us keeping an eye on things over there. In the Intelligence Community (IC), people make a lot out of “chatter”. We might not know what they are talking about, but there are changes in the volume of talking that might point to something happening.
My view is that the news is not really so different. Taking all of the “story of the moment” aspect out of the picture, you can look over the landscape of the news and get an idea of changes in the world. To my way of thinking, there are changes which have been going on in Afghanistan for some time - things we really need to jump on now.
A couple of years ago, the Taliban was decimated and the survivors were deep underground. They dared not show their faces, 72 virgins or no. Now, you see Taliban strikes on a very regular basis. They are gaining confidence with every bomb or ambush they succeed in carrying off. I am not saying this change in the battle space dynamic is because of the change from US to NATO prosecution of war against the Taliban, but the coincidence (or Ko-inki-dink as we used to say) is certainly there. I am also not saying we need a “surge” in Afghanistan. This is not an attempt to REMF Quarterback the operation. I would not know any more what to do to “redouble the effort” than I would know how to groom a llama. I am speaking of this completely holistically.
My feeling is we need to stop talking about our efforts to bring and/or retain other countries in the “war on terror” and get back to taking the fight to the bad guys.
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