A Resilient Problem

Why is virtually any media reporting on the Taliban in Afghanistan accompanied by the term "the resurgent Taliban?" Is it a copyrighted phrase or something? Because reporters all seem to use the term constantly.

The fact that we have not defeated the Taliban yet does not make them "resurgent." It means that they are "resilient" perhaps, as any insurgency worth its salt can be even in the face of superior military power; but it does not mean that our failure to defeat them now indicates the enemy is resurgent and therefore defeating us.

Strategypage writes about the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan:

[The] "Taliban comeback" keeps getting headlines in the media. But it's the Taliban who are increasingly under attack. There hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last two years, and the key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand province, has been under attack as well. The opium crop declined over 25 percent this year. The Taliban hoped that drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance and Pakistani reinforcements would turn the tide. But al Qaeda is a very junior, unpopular, and shrinking partner, and the Pakistani Taliban are sending refugees, not reinforcements. With all that, violence nationwide was up, mainly because there are more foreign troops in the country, being more aggressive against the Taliban and drug gangs.

I just don't see how the enemy is "resurgent."

Much as the enemies in Iraq were too difficult to beat right up to the moment we beat them, we will find that we are battling the "resurgent Taliban" right up to the point that our media finds that they have too few loud explosions to justify that description, and they'll quietly drop it.

And then they'll discuss why we haven't really won and that the price is probably too high to justify the result.

Or, their mis-reporting will convince us to retreat despite the fact that we are beating the enemy, leaving a bloodied and dazed enemy the last one on the battlefield, convinced that Allah really does want them to rule the world. How else would you explain their victory under the circumstances?

Alas, nine years into the Long War, the press corps collectively (there are exceptions on an individual level) still doesn't understand war or history, greatly handicapping their ability to report on the war. No food or fashion reporter would accept such a lack of knowledge even nine weeks into a job, but in foreign affairs, lack of understanding is no handicap to holding the job.