Will Taliban Defeat Itself?

The UN has issued its most recent assessment of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The numbers aren't particularly pretty. The count of the maimed and killed is up the first six months of this year compared with the same period a year back.

The good news, insofar as one can write of "good news" when considering the wounding and killing of non-combatants is that Taliban, the Haqqani network, and other groups of similar ilk are responsible for six civilian casualties for every one inflicted by the ISAF or Afghan National Forces. This ratio is, in part, a credit to the doctrine of "courageous restraint" instituted by General Stan McChrystal and wisely, very wisely continued by General Petraeus.

But even more the differential between Taliban inflicted deaths and mutilations and those resulting from friendly forces is the consequence of a deliberate policy instituted by Taliban. The new policy, approved by spiritual head and one time Chief of State, Mullah Omar, targets civilians through the increased use of non-discriminating weapons such as IEDs as well as demanding trigger pullers hit women as well as men who are "collaborators" with the "apostate" government or its "infidel crusader" supporters.

In short, Taliban is waging war on its own people. This is the single most counterproductive move which can be made by either the insurgent or his opponent. After all, the terrain over which the war is being fought, the terrain which will assure either victory or defeat, is the territory defined by the minds of the people. Killing one's own people is scarcely the best way to achieve success.

General McChrystal realized this years ago. He took the knowledge with him to Afghanistan and immediately, decisively acted to limit the number of deaths and wounds inflicted on civilians by friendly forces. The results were immediate and evident in the shift of trust to ISAF and Afghan forces as indicated by the flow of actionable intelligence by "concerned citizens" and the joining by civilians toting their "personal assault weapons" in fights against Taliban.

Day by day as the initiative has shifted to the ISAF and ANF, so also has Taliban killed more and more non-combatants. Everyday the reports evidence an ever growing propensity of Taliban and its associates to engage in indiscriminate, lethal violence against civilians or to use civilians as human shields.

The confirmation of the trend by the UN is comforting. It underscores the operational necessity of maintaining under whatsoever nomenclature the doctrine of "courageous restraint" regardless of the moaning of those who think we are giving the advantage to Taliban or placing our troops at undue risk. The UN report also demonstrates that Taliban's leadership either does not understand the nature of insurgency and how to win it or is thrashing about in desperation, hoping that terror will bring support and, thus, victory.

The histories of insurgencies demonstrate collectively that not only is it impossible to kill one's way to victory but also that it is possible, even highly likely, that one can kill one's way to defeat. While people when interviewed will cast blame on the government which is apparently failing to protect the non-combatants from harm, the reality is that people who may find themselves in the crosshairs blame (and detest) those who pull the triggers. If it is the insurgents who are doing the killing, it will be the insurgents who get the blame along with loathing and hatred.

The observer can only give Taliban a thumbs-up for utter idiocy. It is to be hoped the Mighty Warriors For Sharia and Allah keep up their work. It will only serve to assure their defeat.

Today's Totally Gripless Award Goes To---

Drum roll, please. Suspense as the Geek opens the envelope. The winner for Meritorious idiocy above and beyond the call of sanity is Human Rights Watch. More specifically the gold plated skull symbolising an empty headed understanding of human affairs goes to Rachel Reid. Ms Reid according to the AP dispatch is the group's "Afghanistan researcher."

Ms Reid is evidently researching an Afghanistan which exists in some alternative universe considering her characterisation of the recent skirmish between Afghan national force members and Taliban. You know, the shoot out last Monday in the wake of which US and other NATO aircraft jockeys were accused of killing nearly 150 civilians.

Ms Reid vented vitriol as she characterised the Monday affray as having the probability of being "the largest and most tragic loss of life to U.S. bombs so far in Afghanistan." Blowing aside the conclusions of the joint preliminary investigation conducted by US and Afghan personnel, Ms Reid went on in a fine bit of rhetorical overkill which was as strident as it was disconnected to reality,

Yet another devastating error inevitably calls into question the continued viability of the use of U.S. and NATO airpower in Afghanistan. The procedures for protecting civilians and verifying intelligence before launching attacks are clearly not working and must be thoroughly reviewed again.

This crock of self-evident delusion is redolent of an attitude which emerged within the context of the anti-Vietnam war movement, "If the government says it--it must be a lie."

As a specialist in US national security history, the Geek is well acquainted with the will and ability of the US (and other) governments to lie, to lie early and often. But, this time around the stance of the joint investigative team holding Taliban responsible for the deaths--even those which occurred due to US or NATO delivered ordnance passes the test of Inherent Military Probability.

The Inherent Military Probability notion was developed over a century ago by Hans Delbruck, a German historian of ancient warfare. It is a useful filter for evaluating not only the exaggerations of ancient writers on the wars of their time but also for assessing the degree of truth resident in a government statement regarding the wars of our time.

As the Geek has written in previous posts, the Taliban, like other Islamist jihadist groups violates with intentionality the customary usages of land warfare meant to protect civilians. The jihadists of Taliban use civilians just as did Hamas--as a means of defeating the military superiority of their opponents while assuring that the inevitable civilian deaths can be used in propaganda to undercut support for the status quo government.

Now, listen up and listen tight, Ms Reid. When Taliban takes up positions in civilian residential compounds, it is violating not only the laws and customs of land warfare, it is discarding the basic ethical imperatives which have served over the centuries to separate war as politics from mere bloodlust driven butchery. When Taliban opens fire on US or International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) or Afghan National Forces (ANF) without allowing civilians to leave the area of operations, it is doing the same. Only with more intent, with more evil in mind. When Taliban forces the civilians to stay in harm's way as was the case last Monday, it, Taliban, is responsible ethically for every dead or injured civilian.

Whether you like it or not, Ms Reid, Taliban is the bad guy in this episode as it has been in so many others which you and your kindred spirits have improperly blamed on the US, or the ISAF or, rarely, the ANF. This reality, the culpability of Taliban, is not surprising. Consider, Ms Reid, if you can, that Taliban, again like all Islamist jihadist movements, engages in suicide bombing and the use of improvised explosive devices (IED) against soft, civilian targets rather than take on troops capable of fighting back.

Ms Reid, you are obviously afflicted by a mental disease common to the academic and chattering classes of the US and Western Europe. It is a form of self-loathing. A form of desperately seeking to blame, to devalue, to deprecate your own culture, your own society, your own country. Thus, you rush to blame-America-first regardless of the realities on the ground.

This is injurious not only to the culture and country which gave you birth. It injures as well the civilians of Afghanistan, the people whom you purport to be protecting.

The only real and final protection of civilian life and hope in Afghanistan is an end to the war. That ending can come only when and if Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are militarily destroyed. Until and unless that happens the ideology of Islamist jihadism will assure that more and more civilians are placed in the crosshairs.

Ms Reid, the Geek has no idea how old you are. Are you of sufficient maturity to remember the Sixties? The Seventies? Even the Eighties of the Reagan administration? Do you remember the ban the bomb campaigns of those years?

If not, you might take a quick look at the history. Back during the Cold War, the ban-the-bomb crowd directed their manifestos, their demands, their demonstrations at the US and the various countries of Western Europe. They did so because these countries are democratic. Amenable at least in principle to the pressure of public opinion. The Soviet Union was not. No protests were aimed in its direction. It would have been a waste of time and energy.

Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are even more immune to public opinion than was the autocracy of the Kremlin. Still, if you and your group, Ms Reid, want to have both credibility and ethical integrity, you must condemn Taliban for its unethical actions. You must, if you are real in your interest in the well-being of the civilians of Afghanistan, take Taliban publicly to task for every one of their recurrent violations of basic human rights.

Human rights? Isn't that in the name of the group for which you speak, Ms Reid?