The Mess of Afghanistan

I have blogged quite a bit about the mess of Iraq. It is a total and utter fuck-up, to put it bluntly. While I have written a bit less about Afghanistan. It is also a total and utter fuck-up, but as the total number of troops and insurgents involved is less, it features on the media radar a lot less (unless you can get a member of the Royal family over there). However the Taliban (or allied forces) have just scored a major victory;

Unidentified militants attacked a NATO forward storage center at the ring road (beltway) of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Sunday morning. They destroyed some 150 trucks loaded with materiel and supplies, including humvees, intended for NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The Taliban figured out that the supply lines to NATO forces was a major weak-point and have been hammering there. A mix of ambushes, IEDs and looting supplies have proven a very successful strategy. This is classic guerilla strategy stuff. Running parallel with this is the Taliban moderating its stance. This is also starting to pay dividends as all NATO (and allied forces) is offering (to the average Afghan) is a mix of death-from-above in massive air-raids and arbitrary detention. Both of which have been shown to push the civilian population into the hands of the Taliban.

In short, it's a fuck up.