RE: Taliban retreats

["Brownson, Jamil" <JBrownson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl, excellent analysis! Afghan loyalties have alwasy been close to home
but mercenary in relation to outsiders, even when "outside" is at a tribal,
ethnic, or regional level, much less any grand "national" or ideological
scheme, such as propagated by Taliban.

You are correct to point out that Taliban had few really significant
military "victories" in the field, and those were largely due to support by
Pakistani military /ISI "advisors". Whle their initial success was due to
perception of them as a clean new actor in the chaos of civil war, their
subsequent dogmatic and capricious rule endeared them to few if any
Afghanis, including most of their allies and recruits. Marx's line "all
that's solid melts into air" has many uses.


As to the "hard core" Taliban and their "foreign" supporters going down in a
hellish fire of bombs & munitions, I have deep compassion for them despite
repudiation of their fanaticism. To be a mujahihadeen is an honorable
identity, albeit perhaps mislpaced in this context. But if many of these men
were veterans of wars for liberation of Muslim lands and peoples from true
state terrorists such as Soviet & Russian successors, then they deserve
compassion at the very least in their final end of unimaginable agony.


-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Carlile [mailto:dagda@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 10:51 PM
To: communism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:19654] Taliban retreats


A study of the history of the Taliban with regard to its take over of most
of
Afghanistan will show that it had not demonstrated any particular skill on
the
battlefield. The Taliban had made many of its gains as a result of
defections
due to sizable payments to the appropriate commanders or due switching sides
so
as to be on the winning side. The Taliban when it did do battle suffered
some
serious blows.

It is clear that this process has been reversed. The significant defections
away
from the Taliban helps explain much of the gains from those that now oppose
them. Those among the Taliban that are putting up a fierce and tenactious
resistance are more than likely the core of the Taliban and OBL's armed
group.

Indeed it was a demonstration of the bankruptcy of the Taliban that should
have
tried to hold on to so much territory under the circumstances. Some weeks
ago I
pointed out that if I were Taliban I would have retreated from the cities
and
kept my army in tact. This would have left me in a better position to resist
and
even mount an offensive againt Western forces.

Karl Carlile
Be free to visit the web site of the Communist Global Group at
http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/