Taliban attacks are up, making their spring offensive an actual event this year. But it isn't working:
While the Taliban have a great PR operation, getting all their violence and manifestos out onto the Internet, this masks the fact that the Taliban are hated by most Afghans and no one inside Afghanistan ever expects the Taliban to be more than a nuisance, another bunch of violent gunmen who can’t be reasoned with and must be killed. This the Afghan security forces are doing in an impressive fashion. So far this month the Afghan troops and police have killed nearly 500 Taliban. This is four times as many dead as the security forces suffered. This kind of loss, to an Afghan foe, is very demoralizing to the average Taliban gunmen. These guys expect to get hammered by the foreign troops, but to take this kind of beating by fellow Afghans dressed like the foreign troops is very discouraging. This is one reason why the security forces have also captured over 600 Taliban so far this month.
Don't despair about the outcome of the war. We tend to see all of our problems up close and in detail while distance and secrecy obscure enemy problems from easy view. What's that Kipling expression? "Only Allah knows how much the enemy is hurt"? Something like that.
Anyway, the Afghan forces--with our support--are defeating the Taliban in the same old way.
