In another tragic consequence of President Bush's short attention span and lack of strategic follow through, we are now hearing alarming reports from Afghanistan indicating that a new reorganized and more viscous generation of the Taliban is making a resurgence -- The Taliban 2.0 -- fueled with loads of cash from opium sales, rearmed, and re-staffed with international recruits.
Now nearly five years after the post 9/11 invasion, we are seeing the net consequence of President Bush's diversion of resources and attention to Iraq. Gretchen Peters, of Raw Story writes that a new more viscous Taliban 2.0 is back and nastier than ever. They're Back: A New, Vicious Taliban Take Shape in Afghanistan: Opium Drug Trade Funding New Type of Taliban Army
KABUL, Afghanistan June 27, 2006 -- - Coalition forces battling the Taliban across southern Afghanistan aren't fighting the same bearded extremists they toppled in October 2001. It's as if the sequel to a horror film is being replayed across southern Afghanistan this summer. Call it "Taliban II." They're back, reloaded, and more ruthless than ever.
President Bush Flits From Afghanistan To Iraq
After the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, President Bush counterattacked against al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. At least, he had identified the right country harboring the terrorists.
But Bush really wanted to attack Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein as part of a PNAC vision to redesign the Middle East, so President Bush quickly lost interest in Afghanistan and began looking for ways to exploit the situation and to redeploy our military assets to Iraq.
Vice President Cheney, headed a group called the White House Iraq Group, to cherry pick, to manipulate, and perhaps, even to fabricate intelligence presented in a deceptive manner to convince the American people, Congress, and the United Nations that Iraq represented the bigger threat to American National Security. And that an illegal preemptive attack on Iraq, a clear violation of the 1945 UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, was justified.
However, this was bogus and deceptive. Castle made of sand crumble eventually to the sea. This flauting of international law and just war theory was the start of the dramatic plunge in international and domestic support for the Bush adminstration. But, at least the intevention in Afghanistan had support as a legitmate counter-attack against Afghanistan based Taliban intervention.
Now through massive incompetence, the Bush Administration seems intent to fail here as well. Losing any last shred of foreign policy or national security credibility.
"Suicide attacks and roadside bombs are now almost a daily occurrence."
But the new Taliban seems to be committing serious strategy blunders of their own. Making enemies of the local population with indiscriminate attacks that cause collateral damage to the local civilian population usually ultimately exacts a price for the perpetrators.
The Taliban seem unconcerned if they hit civilian or military targets. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber in northern Kunduz killed two and injured eight. A suicide attack near the Bagram Airbase on Monday wounded two children.
Soldiers with the U.S.-led coalition are currently battling the Taliban across four southern provinces: Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan.
More than 1,100 -- most of them Taliban -- have died in the vicious fighting.
Reports vary but all involve violence such as Taliban soldiers gouging the eyes out of prisoners they capture in the South or burning down schools that offer co-ed classes.
Last week ABC News received a grisly video release. It pictured the Taliban's ruthless one-legged commander Mullah Dadullah beheading alleged spies for America.
Ahmed Rashid, author of the "Taliban," said the movement had gone through "many morphings," and argued that so-called moderates had defected or been purged by the current leadership now loyal to Osama bin Laden.
"They are particularly brutal," Rashid said, "and they are doing al Qaeda's bidding."
But all Qaeda will quickly lose a recruiting advantage if they do not restrain their troops from killing the civilian population. But the tradition of ruthlessly savage local warlords dominating a region with sheer terror seems to have deep roots in this region.
The New Taliban II: Is Bringing Chaos And Terror
This is a marked change from the past. Then, despite their bizarre edicts that forced women to wear burqas, and banned kite-flying and beard-trimming, at least they brought a measure of stability to this long-troubled country.
"In the early days of the Taliban, they brought security, and they got credit for that," said Mirajuddhin Pathan, the governor of Khost province. "Now they have nothing to offer, and the people hate them."
So far al Qaeda has received protection for fiercely independent tribes on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coalition forces should try to exploit this error to gain advantage in the battle of the hearts and minds.
However, as I reported last week, an increasing number of Afghans believe the US and coalition forces are in the process of withdrawing, so sheer fear and intimidation may trump over hearts and minds.
Taliban 2 Adopting Iraqi Tactics
The bedraggled force so easily toppled in 2001 has resurged with new tactics and surprising stamina.
Taliban units now attack in larger numbers -- sometimes with as many as 400 men, according to military experts and soldiers who have fought them.
They stand their ground longer, rather than engaging in the hit-and-run attacks that characterized the insurgency in recent years.
"The tactics of the Pakistan Taliban are developing similarities to the violence orchestrated in Iraq by insurgents and al Qaeda linked Sunni terrorists," said terrorism analyst MJ Gohel. "Afghanistan is becoming another killing field for the global jihad movement."
Taliban 2 More International In Composition Not Just Tactics
"They are not Afghan. They're not Pakistani," according to a senior Afghan official. "They are transnational terrorists, and they are serious radicals."
Before the Taliban were made up of mostly ethnic Pashtuns from southern Afghanistan. Now, experts say, fighting units are made up of a mix of Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks.
Cash Flow From Opium Trade May Be Funding Taliban
Experts agree that it may be possible that the Taliban are going it alone thanks to drug money.
It's impossible to know how much of Afghanistan's $3 billion opium trade ends up in terrorist coffers, but Helmand province -- a place where the Taliban have the deepest ties to the drug trade -- will produce about $1 billion of opium this year alone.
It sad to see such chaos and failure after so many years, lives, and resources have been expended. And unlike the war in Iraq, there was some justification for the counterattack in Afghanistan. While I oppose the Neocon's reliance of war as the first resort instead of diplomacy, I do believe there are occasions where Just War theory can legitimize military efforts, especially in self-defense.
I'm not an expert, in the Afghanistan region, but do feel as if we need a legitimate and effective war on terrorism. It is worrisome that I do not see an effective response of any sort being focused on Afghanistan. We seem to be on hold, biding time in the one area where there may actually be an argument for more forceful military opposition.
It seems unacceptable to me to allow the net outcome of five years of US military intervention to deliver Afghanistan to an even more virulent and internationalized form of al-Qaeda terrorism and drug lords. But, I confess I do not have a solution to propose. I wish we heard more from our Democratic professional foreign policy experts.
We urgently need new national secruity thinking for the entire region and US national security policy. How can we catalyze this?