We had NATO's Operation Eagle in October, 2006, which ended with a whimper and a peace deal a month later between the British and the Taliban, providing for a mutual withdrawal. This followed public complaints from Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, who warned then that his troops in Afghanistan "were fighting at the limit of their capacity and could only "just" cope" with the situation.

The deal was never liked by the hawks. The Pentagon sabotaged the deal by killing a prominent local Taliban leader http://www.afgha.com/... To further register their distaste for the deal which had brought peace to the region, the Pentagon followed up with with one of its trademark "precision" air strikes in July, 2007 killing 16 civilians and wounding 20 ( http://www.pajhwak.com/... ).

The Achilles Heal of the NATO/US forces continued to stymie all progress: with a split command, only the US controlled the real military agenda. Hence, the unilateral breach of the deal by the US led NATO planners to run to their Thesauri in search of a yet another Operation name, and after the "Taliban" seized control in February, 2007, Operation Achilles was announced with great fanfare but little actual battle in March, 2007. http://www.nato.int/...

This past October, rumors surfaced that Karzei's repeating begging for peace talks with indigenous Taliban elements was beginning to bear fruit. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/... It was seen to be causing significant conflict within the ranks of the insurgency. Apparently, there appeared a very real possibility for a potentially momentous defection by the biggest Pashtun tribe in Helmand (approx. 25% of the population), involving thousands of Alizai fighters, led by a former Taliban mujahidin commander, Mullah Abdul Salaam. The majority of Taliban fighters in Musa Qala are the Pirzai Alizai, who are mostly loyal to Salaam.

This latest hope for some peace and quiet for Afghans appears to have yet again been torpedoed by American hawks. It is is ironic that while the US military is never shy about launching the odd murderous air strike to keep the pot boiling in Afghanistan, and thus leaving other country's troops on the ground to bear the consequences, i.e. to bleed to death, it becomes very shy about putting more boots on the ground due to the Iraq quagmire.

Just recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected a Pentagon proposal to shift Marine forces from Iraq to Afghanistan http://www.nytimes.com/...

There are no more troops for Afghanistan, from anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Current NATO/US forces cannot defeat a truly massive Taliban infrastructure that now exists virtually unchallenged a few hundred miles away in Pakistan, feeding in an almost unlimted supply of troops, weapons, and ammo.

One must question the NATO statement that Musa Qala has absolutely no military significance, notwithstanding that it lies "in the heart of the poppy growing region." from which is derived one of the Taliban's major sources of war funding. It would seem to be a major military objective to deprive an enemy of its income. The beauty of such a plan is your own benefit of such income.

Musa Qala was initially occupied by the British at the express insistence of Karzei, as part of a purported political strategy to develop regional centers of national government control, and also, though this is barely worth mentioning, to defend the then governor and Karzei protege, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada. The fact that troops were dying daily in defense of what was then described as nothing more than a "mud wall" became too embarrassing to all concerned when US troops, stopping for tea with the governor, found 9 tons of opium in his office (Sher Muhammad claimed it was all for personal use). Tsk, tsk. He had to go.

This fact, in conjunction with mounting troop deaths, spurred the Brits to withdraw under the terms of a truce negotiated directly between them and indigenous Taliban leaders. Peace reigned!

Peace unchecked leads to true horror: budget cuts, troop withdrawals, and no more medals. Peace is the real enemy in war, and the Americans were having none of that, so they unilaterally began assassinating local leaders, and just for a laugh, dropped a few bombs killing some 16 civilians to seal the deal.

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Current NATO/US forces cannot defeat a truly massive Taliban infrastructure that now exists virtually unchallenged a few hundred miles away in Pakistan, feeding in an almost unlimted supply of troops, weapons, and ammo.

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