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StrategyPage Afghanistan: The Real Enemy Stays In The Shadows
What really runs things in Afghanistan are the drug gangs. They pull more strings than the Taliban, and have more firepower. The drug gangs use the Taliban to distract the armed foreigners who, if they wanted to, could shut down much of the drug business. So could the Afghan government, but too many officials have a financial interest in leaving the heroin production alone. The drugs have brought unprecedented prosperity to those in positions of power. The few hundred people who run the drug business are also getting rich, but not insanely so. Most of the money is spread around to insure that heroin production and exporting is not interfered with. Meanwhile, the Taliban are mainly all about getting themselves killed. The Taliban have to operate in large groups (a hundred or more gunmen) in order to be able to intimidate locals into working with them. But groups this large can be detected by NATO air and electronic reconnaissance. When the Taliban get too close to a town or major road, out come the smart bombs and ground troops. Great slaughter follows, with dozens of dead Taliban, plus others captured. The prisoners increasingly tell the same story (recruited in Pakistani religious schools for holy war, or brought into Pakistan by al Qaeda to fight infidel invaders.) The Afghan media is bribed to play up real or imagined stories of foreign troops killing Afghan civilians. Afghan troops and police kill far more civilians, but that's not news, because that's been going on forever. The important things is that the Taliban and drug gangs will pay journalists for "foreigner kills Afghans" stories, with a bonus if the Western press picks it up (and they do grab some of the better done fabrications). Posted by: ed 2008-07-30 |
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