Turning Tide? Fighting Terrorism In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen

Two news articles today make me wonder if perhaps the Taliban have reached their high water mark and now are about to ebb back into the caves and crevices of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The New York Times reports that some Afghanis within their own country are starting to pick up arms against the religious extremists. Some "experts" claim that the formation of local militias weakens the central government. But with a central government that is not trusted by the citizenry, local action is an effective means of combating the Taliban push. Effective counter-insurgency requires the active cooperation and action from the locals in order to defeat the Taliban. Except for the British action in Malaysia against insurgent forces there, a 15 year battle which resulted in the uprooting and relocation of a major portion of the population, regular army actions against insurgents have all failed.

Taliban cruelty is becoming more well known then their supposed piety. And perhaps even in war-weary Afghanistan, there may be a limit to how much oppression people will tolerate.

Further evidence that Afghanis, may, just may, be finding a new path away from corrupt government comes in this NYTIMES story from Kabul:

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a clear signal to President Hamid Karzai that he cannot count on Parliament for support, lawmakers resoundingly rejected most of his nominees for cabinet posts and expressed discontent with the candidates’ competence.

From the eastern side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border comes this story about Pakistani reaction to the recent car-bombing that killed almost 100 innocents. Said one Pakistani elder who is part of a still forming anti-Taliban council:

"The people are in severe grief and fear — it is a demoralizing thing," said Raham Dil Khan, a rifle-toting, 70-something member of the tribal council. "We want the government to provide security, but one thing is very clear: The committee will stand against every type of terrorism and despite this great loss we will continue our work."


If sufficient forces form to squeeze the Taliban simultaneously from the Afghan side of the border and also from the Pakistan side of the border, the Taliban will be hard-pressed to wage effective warfare in either country. And that which makes life difficult for the Taliban also makes life difficult for Osama Bin Laden's Al-Kaida, which has been sheltered by the Taliban for decades.

The question arises: Can NATO forces provide sufficient backing for the local anti-Taliban Afghanis without raising their own profile to the degree that they are considered foreign invaders, and thus targets of nationalistic, or tribal, Afghanis?

A second question arises. If the military and political pressures in the Afghanistan-Pakistan make life uncomfortable for Al-Kaida. Where will that group go next? Al-Kaida is an idea, it is a stateless, amorphous entity that thrives without traditional governmental forms and structures. It moves like quicksilver. Push it in one direction and it will flow in another. It needs neither a capital city nor a standing army. Offshoots can and have developed where they did not exist previously such as Iraq and Yemen. It thrives wherever Islamic governments are corrupt or weak or both. It thrives where there is a disaffected Muslim populations, such as the Philippines.

It is clear that Al-Kaida must be attacked on all fronts simultaneously to prevent it from flowing and reforming where fertile environments exist: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, The Philippines. Can the United States, local governments, and whatever Western allies we can muster, commit the forces, the funds, and more important, the political will to fight what will be a delicate and decades long war against terrorism?