 Britain has launched a "reconciliation" drive to undermine support for the Taliban after Whitehall strategists concluded that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan cannot be won, the Guardian has learned. In a significant shift in tactics, senior British officials have stopped talking about winning a war. "We do not use the word 'win'," one said. "We can't kill our way out of this problem."
| I dunno, you've been stacking them up pretty well here lately ... |
Officials say the new tactics are to identify "Talibs who are sick of fighting" and persuade them to rejoin their tribes and benefit from the human rights laws and state structures being set up in the country. Captured fighters may also be offered alternatives to incarceration, while more deals will be sought with tribal elders.
They hope increasingly to damage the Taliban without relying on a shooting war, a tactic which has often proved counter-productive in the past, notably when Nato air strikes kill civilians. "We are convinced most people do not support the Taliban and want to take a route through it," said one source. British officials distinguish the Taliban from al-Qaida, describing it as a "more fluid" organisation.
Contrasting the Taliban with al-Qaida, a one said: "Al-Qaida's operations are more sophisticated than the Taliban and al-Qaida is very choosy about who they work with."
| Boy howdy, there's an insult to the Talibs. |
An official familiar with British policy on Afghanistan described the difference this way: "The Taliban is not a homogenous group. It is a mixture of characters - criminals, drug dealers, people out of work. There is a wide variety of different people. The Taliban pays them to carry out these attacks so there are ways to tackle the problem, to split off the disillusioned." He pointed to Hakim Munib, the governor of Oruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, as an example of a former Taliban figure who had left the movement.
| All well and good, but persuading some of the Talibs to toss their rods to the ground and come up with their mitts in the air works a little better if they understand that the failure to do so means near-certain death from NATO. It's the 'strong horse' thing again. |
British officials are worried about the consequences of US proposals to eradicate Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest, which include spraying the crops from the air, a policy it adopted in Colombia. The fear is that tough anti-narcotic measures now would alienate poor farmers who have no alternative livelihood and drive more Afghans into the hands of the Taliban. Such a policy would further endanger British troops, military commanders say. "The Americans are more impatient than we are," said one official, adding that the immediate priority should be to target and disrupt "convoys and laboratories and medium value drugs traffickers".
| And allowing another season of poppies generates a few ka-jillion dollars more for the Taliban. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Let do. |
Mr Browne told the Commons yesterday that Britain would deploy four more helicopters and four more Harrier jets to the country, more Warrior armoured vehicles, and multiple-launch rocket systems. |