[gandalftb]

DE BORCHGRAVE has terrific insights and knows the beltway well. His contacts with French and Brit intelligence are probably unmatched.

He's a little bit off the mark on the Pakistani theater. Baitullah is the major clan leader of the Mehsud tribe, but here are many others. His influence like many clan leaders is very powerful where it exists, but not very far reaching. He's pals with Bin Hiden and it's the AQ Uzbeks that are the big problem in the FATA.

Maulana Fazlallah is still the major player in Swat, Mullah Omar in overall strategic command of the Taliban, and the Wazir tribes in S. Waziristan have their own jirga.

Politically it is a mess and our spec ops would be terminated quickly if we don't get some sort of tactical platform in Pakistan, in the FATA. Very difficult to translate DC political objectives into successful military tactics. No military force in history, not even the Paki's with a 30% Pushtun military have ever operated there effectively.

[AliVeritas]

Where has he been btw?

[voletti]

No military force in history, not even the Paki's with a 30% Pushtun military have ever operated there effectively

In history, you say?

Not so, Pre-islamic Afghanistan and FATA were part of the persian empire for long. Buddhist afghania was vandalized, brutalized, raped and killed by islam. What you see there today is what killed humanity in that land.

A steam roller, take no prisoners, kill all combatants and potential combatants policy is possibly the only one that can work against the Taliban. Ironically, that was what the USSR was doing there in the 80s.