JMH

US, NATO and ANA troops are doing a superb job in Afghanistan. The problems in Afghanistan are based in failed government policy, economic problems exacerbated by corruption and a tolerate European and Afghan attitude toward extremism. This is coupled with a strategic failure in Pakistan of not destroying Taliban training camps, which if not corrected will doom Afghanistan to anarchy.

With the support of the poppy crop, the Taliban have become self sufficient with Hamid Karzai's brother as one of the top drug lords in the country. The Afghan government is extremely corrupt with Afghan government officials using US and European aid money to build their own mansions and estates while the Afghan people live in abject poverty. Also, the Taliban have safe haven in Pakistan from which they can launch terror campaigns across the Afghan/Pakistani border every year during the summer months.

In addition to this over half of the NATO force in Afghanistan (German, Italian, Spanish and French forces) will not deploy to southern Afghanistan and join the US, British, Canadian, Australian, Dutch and Danish forces in the fight against the Taliban. Consequently, only a small number of NATO troops in Afghanistan are actually actively seeking out and attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Consequently:

-There are too few troops to secure the Afghan/Pakistani border
-There are too few troops available to interdict the Taliban entering Afghanistan from Pakistan.
-Over half the NATO troops that are available in Afghanistan cannot or will not be used in combat operations.
-the Taliban have a near limitless supply of madrassa students that are trained every year in the Taliban's Pakistani Bases to be used in the annual summer offensives against NATO Forces, the Afghan Government and Afghan civilians.
-significant numbers of ANA troops who are trained by US military personnel are actually members of the Taliban, who regularly desert the Afghan army to join jihad movements in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
-In addition to terrorizing Afghan civilians with shakedowns and kidnappings, the Afghan National Police coordinate with Afghan drug lords to protect the poppy trade which in turn finances the Taliban who provide for the poppy supplies safe transit to Pakistani seaports

Changing unit tactics will not address any of these problems.

Several ways these problems could be addressed are:

-Increase the US commitment to Afghanistan by three brigades
-Use all NATO combat units in Afghanistan in counter insurgency operations in southern Afghanistan
-Recruit the Northern Alliance tribes to fight the Taliban
-Pressure the President Hamid Karzai to make the existence of the Taliban in any form illegal in Afghanistan
-Pressure President Hamid Karzai to crack down on his corrupt government officials to ensure that western and US aid money actually benefits the Afghan people.
-Pressure President Hamid Karzai to allow the firebombing of poppy fields throughout Afghanistan.
-close and fortify the Afghan/Pakistani border
-Pressure President Musharraf to shut down Pakistan madrassas and destroy the Taliban base camps located in Pakistan
-encourage Europeans to crack down on they’re illicit drug use

If these problems are not addressed, no amount of military effort in Afghanistan will ultimately prevail, unless the US turns to a scorched earth, total war policy which would either drive out the tribes that support the Taliban or exterminate them.