But only if it comes from the Afghans themselves. It's their land, their people and their future the ones hanging in the balance, not ours.

The fact that no one likes the Taliban,and most locals are quite fearful of them, should be the driving force behind ANA and ANP strategy. The Northern Alliance survived and flourished across Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, why can't its leaders rise up again to the fight with the same effectiveness?

Just like in Iraq, the ultimate fate of the country will be up to the locals themselves, the western army should only serve as "facilitator", as the western commitment and interests in that region are actually quite limited.

One has to ask oneself, what would define a victory in Afghanistan?
This is not a regular war, so in order to know when victory is achieved, you must first know what victory is. Afghanistan is much more complicated than a regular "us vs. them" situation, a fact that is often overlooked in this kind of discussion.

Yaha Massound’s recipe sounds sensible and worth a try but I don’t see why it needs the ISAF. Surely Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves these days, could do all that under contract to Kabul, and the US just foot the bill.

Many of our US soldiers dying in Afghanistan were barely 10 years old on 9/11. This is how long the war has lasted. Thousands killed or maimed, Afghanistan near the brink and countless Afghan lives lost and the vast proud and ancient land devastated to satiate the ruthless generals who rule behind a mere facade of democracy in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The US administration is simultaneously talking about cutting its losses and retreating while ironically ordering an impending surge of an additional 30,000 US troops blindly being put in harm’s way. More death and destruction awaits us, while the solution to our predicament has been staring us in the face from the very first day of this horrid war.

The Taliban - vanquished in 2001, have returned with renewed strength. Is this possible without the Taliban's vital lifeline to the vast militant infrastructure carefully nurtured in Pakistan?

Under a thin veil of deniability, Pakistan tolerates and/or enables terrorist safe havens, sanctuaries for training camps, madrassa factories that produce martyrs for jihad and teenage suicide bombers and organizations of all shades that raise and funnel funds from a vast international network to arm and sustain the terror pipeline to the Taliban fighters..

The simple truth: If Pakistan terminates its terror lifeline to the Taliban, the Taliban's days as an effective fighting force in Afghanistan would quickly end. Only then can Afghan citizens get enough breathing room to earnestly begin rebuilding their war torn nation with the help of its friends and with international aid already underway. Only then can Afghans start fixing the many problems that has been their tragic legacy due to past wars. It is absurd to criticize Afghans for corruption etc. as long as USA turns its habitual blind eye, to the equally diabolical Pakistani propensity to meddle in the affairs of its neighbors.

US aid keeps Pakistan from the brink of economic collapse. The US certainly has the power to shape Pakistan's behavior. As a precondition for the continued massive US aid - as a quid-pro-quo, President Obama should require that Pakistan deliver on its often broken promises to eradicate its terrorist infrastructure and terminate its lifeline to the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in a transparent and verifiable manner. Only then can peace have a chance to begin the healing process and common citizens get a chance to breathe freely without fear.

Instead of being resolute and hold Pakistan to its promise to end the terror sanctuaries, Obama has sadly decided to reward Pakistan’s deception with billions of our tax dollars and shiploads of lethal arms including nuclear capable F-16's. This is counterproductive since it only prolongs the agony of the Afghans and continues to cost the US needless life and treasure while endangering peace in the region.

The title of this piece appears to be rather unrealistically hopeful. It is a wonderful, skillful and artistic presentation of issues that engulf Afghanistan today.

However, Mr. Massoud needs to understand that as long as ISI's presence (backed by Kayani and company) is a recognizable fact, the Afghans will continue to suffer.

Take Pakistan out of the equation and we'll be 'rewarded' with a much peaceful area that may bring the much-needed stability without destruction of structures and human lives.

The Pakistanis are restless and highly-driven souls. They are ambitious and motivated. Whereas gaining control of Kashmir from India seems to be a far-fetched idea, they still 'want' Afghanistan's 'subjugation'.

There are currents and undercurrents within the Pakistani military bureaucracy that dictates supporting the Taliban - a fact know much before the recent WikiLeaks 'revelation'. One is not really sure why the Western countries encourage and support Kayani. Or, do they really? One wonders at times.

Afghanistan's problems are, to a certain extent, just like Pakistan's issues. Both are paralyzed by the over-zealous religious fanatics; people are corrupt; there is no 'system' whatsoever to run the government, politicians are nasty as hell.

The war may possibly be doable proposition. It's not impossible. However, those role-players meddling negatively in Afghan affairs need to not only be checked but also should be told to stay away. Pakistan, of course, tops that list.

'This may seem a daunting task. But Afghans, Americans, and Europeans alike should realize that, even if the war effort succeeds on all other fronts but fails to protect the border, the struggle against the insurgents will be lost.'

Someone, anyone, tell me, as a soldier who spent a year in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces, how you can 'protect the border'? What border? Where? How? NURISTAN and KUNAR? That's not even Afghanistan. It's Pashtunistan and a separate country named 'Nuristan'.

Nuristan is absolutely, positively, violently ungovernable by outside forces. Anything resembling a security force with government legitimacy there would have to incorporate and integrate the majority of the fighting groups into its force for legitimacy reasons. Kunar is enemy central. Nuristan is absolutely, positively schizophrenically a province of primitive anarchy.

To Taliban: You want to control our nation while you are controlled by al qaeda and insurgent. They laugh at you because you allow them to enter our country on their false words to you. They would fight you too one day they say. Bring back a success to our Afghan country and let UN rebuild our country for our children. Insurgent and al qaeda are not from us, it is their will to control many Islamic nation. Don't let them control your thought and actions. Come back to your families, to our people and make our nation one where we can be happy with our families, have jobs and homes, feed our children and contribute to the world because we are a smart nation that is creative and needs education. Our people have suffered from these radicals who think they can control you and our country. Dialogue with UN to help them rebuild us. We can keep our culture and our faith, we just want fairness for all people, good lives for our children, trade with other countries...we the people DO NOT want people training in our lands to hurt good people for their agenda...America isnt imperialist, the insurgent who pretend to be helping you are the true invader, as they use our land to train and harm others. Be your own voice and come back to our nation to make it better, not worse.

I applaud your hopefulness but question how you can conflate it with reality. Certainly, as an Afghan citizen, you are intimately aware of failures in both the Afghan government and NATO forces to effect top-down and-bottom-up changes. It is evident that both entities have been unable to work cooperatively these past 9 years to achieve a consensus on how best to defeat the Taliban let alone remake the country if that is even remotely possible.

The Afghan people have been perennially living between a rock and a hard place suffering the vagaries and violence perpetrated by the government, the occupying forces and the Taliban. Karzai is feckless., his administration corrupted. NATO, COIN and SURGE are redundant. It's easy for the Taliban exploit their collective weaknesses. What has been achieved in 9 years? Not much. For all your good intentions, it would seem, realistically, your ideas are not too little but too late.

Despite the concerted effort by the US military, which has embraced the false religion of COIN in the last three years, mistakenly taking credit for the Iraqi Anbar Awakening, the current administration has correctly assessed that Counter-Terror, not COIN will be the de facto strategy in Afghanistan.

As an active past and current participant of both OIF/New Dawn and OEF, with seven over seas tours so far, I salute that decision! I have lost six personal friends so far in this war without end, due to that false religion setting the pace of our operations. As a New Yorker (very few in the Army), I salute the return of our focus on killing and capturing Al Qaeda, rather than conducting nation building in a place where they do not want it.

Let the Afghans go back to blowing themselves up. They can talk all day about having defeated whomever, but at the end of the day, they will continue to remain uncivilized barabrians that they have been since before the Achaemenid conquest. Let them bask in their independence and freedom to lob each others' heads off, and prevent their daughters from ever learning how to read. Allahu Akhbar!

Thanks for this informative article. Ahmad Shah Massoud was a great man and it is a shame the US did not support him more while he was still alive. If he was at the helm of the Afghan nation instead of Karzai, I would feel much more comfortable about having American troops in Afghanistan.

"The Taliban would even kill the sun, bringing darkness to all over the world"... oh, come on, what this kind of idiocy is doing on a site like FP? Who do you want to sway with big, meaningless words like that? It's like "The Taliban are doing everything bad, while we're doing everything good". This is not a black and white scenario, and because their interests do not align with yours, they are not evil. This idiotic, brainwashing propaganda has to end. STOP SPREADING THE HATRED!

The Tajiks and the Hazara's are great fighters but they are not primarily fighters. They are traders, farmers, artisans who fight when they have to!
The Pashtuns are primarily fighters. That is what they seem to have chosen as their primary vocation. That seems to have served them well by their own assessment. Hence they continue to do that.

As much as I would love to agree with Mr. Masood, I do not share his optimism.
I think the best way forward is to bring peace to the non-Pashtun Afghanistan.
Do a de-facto partition. Let the Tajiks, hazaras and Uzbeks go back to their primary vocations. Do not try to solve the Taliban problem, just contain it.
Once you take Pashtuns out of the equation, you take Pakistan out automatically. Let Pakistanis deal with the Pashtuns, let them absorb those in their loose Pak-Pashtunistan confederation. Let them get their "Strategic depth" and all the headache that it comes with.

Give Pashtuns 20- 30 years and they will come back to seeing it for what it is.
So the best solution is to emancipate Masood's people and leave the rest of the Af-Pak alone.

This article points out that our president is shifting to a 'counterterrorism' strategy - killing more insurgents in leadership positions - than counterinsurgency, which is flailing as of late:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/world/asia/01afghan.html?pagewanted=all

I think the logic is right. You can't actually win any battle with pure arms, but you can still win if you have the right strategy. Just implement it rightly then hope that everything will work as expected.Daniel Woods

Accommodation must be found with the Taliban, with Pakistan's help despite the cries and yelps from the Hindoo Indian contingent.

Throwing the Afghan baby out with bath water.

The West hopes to hand over security to Afghan security forces by 2014.

Ahmed Rashid says in the wake of the Wikileaks dossier, Western lawmakers must focus on ending the war in Afghanistan responsibly, with Pakistan’s help, or risk setting the region aflame.

Pakistan’s General Kiyani wants an end to the Afghan war and the destabilisation of Pakistan.

He knows that as the end-game approaches he has to take on board the interests of other neighbouring states and the non-Pashtun minorities.

Accommodation must be found with the Taliban, with Pakistan’s help.John Kerry has said that Pakistan is more crucial to the outcome than what happens in Afghanistan itself in many cases and Pakistan remains central… and perhaps holds the key.

Read the full article here:

lalqila.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/throwing-the-afghan-baby-out-with-bath-water-the-west-hopes-to-hand-over-security-to-afghan-security-forces-by-2014-ahmed-rashid-says-in-the-wake-of-the-wikileaks-dossier-western-lawmakers-must-foc/

There is a component of this war that is largely overlooked – that of treating wounded civilians.

Am I alone in thinking that the richest nation in the world can afford to provide medical care for wounded Afghan civilians – 40% of whom are wounded by NATO action? It is common practice for civilians to be refused care when NATO hospitals enter “condition black” – signifying maximum capacity. This doctrine amounts to triaging patients based on nationality, secondary to medical need.

This is contrary to DoD’s own regulation requiring “The … sorting of patients according to type and seriousness of injury, … to assure medical care of the greatest benefit to the largest number.”

It is unscrupulous – and likely illegal – according to the Geneva Convections – that we refuse care to war-wounded civilians, and immoral to treat them as secondary citizens.

Congress must investigate the shameful practice. Certainly DoD can do more to relieve suffering and decrease mortality and end this reprehensible act of providing substandard care to the disenfranchised.

These innocent Afghan civilians deserve protection to mitigate needless suffering. Congress may continue to support this unjust war – but end this appalling practice – this policy of neglect.

how about all of you foreigns fuck off and leave afghanstan already..
coz you cant win this war now creating conflict between their own people like you fucking america did in pakistan.. it wont happen buddy..

afghan is one.. you cant say afghan can defeat taliban... they all are freedom fighters.. they will fuck you off afghanistan soonish.. and USA AND THE REST OF CRUSADERS HAVE BEEN DEFEATED ALREADY..

join this page all of you... and yeah come for argument whoever want to..

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/pages/Pukhtoons-vs-Crusaders/140215429344548?ref=ts