[Skybird]

As the memorandum just confirms my old point: one has to stop thinking of the enemy in Afghanistan being all Taliban only. the Taliban are just one mongst several factions fighting there. And they probably even are not a majority group.

All Wetsern strategy for Afghanistan ignores this. And that's why it not only fails in acchieveing it'S goals, but makes things even worse.

Different to widespread perception, the Afghans by majority are no great fans of the Taliban. The Taliban are more a Pakistani than Afghan problem. In Afghan you are battling mroe with local facitons that oppose the central givernment in Kabul. And that the West lines up with that centralised, corrupt government, makes things worse.

All Taliban are enemies to the West. But not enemies in Afghnaistan are taliban. Speaking with Taliban does not make sense, since by definition the Taliban are extremely relgious and faithful in folliwing the djihad. Only trying to talk some of the other factions out of the amred confolict, sometimes has some chances for constructive results- which necessarily must be at the cost of the centralised goivernment.

We must kick Karzai, and seek solutions on small scale, local levels, ignoring the interests of the clique in Kabul. As I see it, the Afghan govenrment is as hostile to the Western attempts as is any other faction in the war. However, the Taliban themselves of course must be forget and killed, no matter where. But again: most of the enemy factions in Afghanistan are probably not at all Taliban.