Improved Taliban Tactics Surprise U.S.
"The Taliban has become a much more potent adversary in Afghanistan by improving its own tactics and finding gaps in the U.S. military playbook, according to senior American military officials who acknowledged that the enemy's resurgence this year has taken them by surprise..."
"..."There are periods when an enemy does well and seems better trained and fights harder," one senior defense official said. "The number one indicator we have out there now is that they think they're winning. That creates an attitude, a positive outlook, and a willingness to sacrifice."
The positive outlook has a basis in fact, the official said, as areas of Taliban influence have expanded. "They have enough of the landscape that they control to be able to train more and in closer proximity to where they're fighting. And the people [living] there actually believe the Taliban can do something."
U.S. military officials differ on the extent of Taliban success and the reasons for it. Senior U.S. commanders in eastern Afghanistan, where insurgent leader Jalaluddin Haqqani's network is dominant, said that the sophistication of the insurgents' attacks had increased markedly, beginning with bloody battles along the Pakistani border last summer. To many of the Americans, it appeared as if the insurgents had attended something akin to the U.S. Army's Ranger school, which teaches soldiers how to fight in small groups in austere environments.
"In some cases . . . we started to see that enhanced form of attack," said one Army general who oversaw forces in Afghanistan until earlier in the summer. As attacks in the east have increased this year, some officers have speculated that the insurgents are getting more direct help from professional fighters from Arab and Central Asian countries. These embedded trainers, the officers said, play almost the same role as U.S. military training teams that live with and mentor Afghan government forces.
In recent months, the Taliban fighters have used mortars to force U.S. troops into defensive positions, where they are then hit with rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and machine guns. Insurgent units have learned to maintain "radio silence" as they move and to wet down the ground to prevent dusty recoil that would make them targets. They have "developed the ability to do some of the things that make up what you call a disciplined force," including treating casualties, the Army general said...."
Thanks to Juan Cole for enlightening me... His Blog is a must read.
Why wouldn’t we think the Taliban are a tough, determined movement?
They ruled Afghanistan from 1996 through 2001 and still will be in power if they would have given up al-Qaeda. With Pakistan as their biggest supporter, there is no way the Northern Alliance would have overthrown the Taliban.
The Taliban are Pashtuns – the largest ethnic group in Iraq (42%).
I mention again I just finished the "Best and the Brightest" by David Halberstam. Kennedy and Johnson recognize it was not in our National Interest to stay in Vietnam. The more troops they committed to the fight the more difficult it was to leave.
I fear Osama is putting us in a quagmire.