Flippin' Nuts

The quickest way of ending a war
is to lose it
-George Orwell

The deception with tact
Just what are you trying to say
You've got a blank face, which irritates
Communicate, pull out your party piece
--One Thing Leads to Another,
The Fixx

Oh, this is the night,
and the heavens are right!
On this lovely bella notte!
--Bella Note, Lady and the Tramp
____________________

When ISAF commander General John Allen recently spoke of "flipping the Taliban", he sounded as hopeful as a Florida real estate agent in 2011 pimping distressed properties at their 2008 bloat. Somehow, the glee or logic of his concept escapes us.

Gen. Allen is referring to his ordering of a surge to convince fighters in the Southern Afghanistan Pashtun - Taliban nexus to hang up the fight and return to their pacific village life, ahem (U.S. Seizes Moment to Try to "Flip" Taliban). Allen aims to "quickly capitalize on plunging morale among insurgents in southern Afghanistan, once the backbone of the Taliban movement, and to lure militants back to their homes with jobs and other incentives."

"Now is the moment," Allen said in an interview from Kabul.

If you believe that Afghani fighters wish to abdicate what they do best because they are feeling a little abandoned, I have some property in the armpit of North Florida which floods every rainy season and we'll call it "waterfront"

The Pashtuns have a constant supply of recruits from Pakistan willing to conduct border crossings to volunteer for combat duty with the Taliban (a fact which Ahmed Rashid [et. al.] confirms in his seminal study, "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2001)"), so how would flipping a few thousand low-level fighters have any tactical or strategic significance? Their replacements are standing in the door.

In Afghanistan, nearly 2,400 former fighters have gone through a reintegration program, and 3,000 more are waiting to do so. The program provides former militants with training and jobs to ease their reintegration into society.

Reintegration hasn't led to a groundswell of fighters switching sides yet, said Jeffrey Dressler, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. He said militants remain wary of whether the Afghan government and coalition can protect them if they switch sides, and they are unsure that the government can defeat the Taliban, which has killed some fighters who have switched sides.

Additionally, not all insurgents are Taliban. Some are Communist, some nationalists, monarchist, anti-colonialist, Islamist, and some just plain old garden variety dead-enders. Let us not forget the drug lords and associated criminal mafias.

Are our leaders delusional or just ignorant of the geopolitical facts of this conflict?

None of this black-and-white. The Taliban can't be flipped like McDonald's burgers or pole barns on 2008 price-bloated Florida sandbars.

--Jim & Lisa