Taliban Schmaliban - The India Attacks, Once Again, Show That Defeating Terrorist Organizations Will Not End This War

Karzai drops political jargon, makes troubling philosophical observations

Such as, "The Afghans don't understand any more how a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with entire international community behind them - yet still we are not able to defeat the Taliban."

Indeed, why is that? Why does this "little force" have so much influence? When will bands like the Taliban -- or, for that matter, al-Qaeda -- be decisively defeated? When does one declare victory?

When one finally appreciates that the ideologies driving such groups are grounded in what they believe to be eternal, immutable commandments from the Almighty, one will understand that the threat of radical Islam is not temporal, that it transcends time and space, that it transcends grievances and psychoanalyses, that it, and its peculiar institution, jihad, have existed from the dawn of Islam and are not about to go away anytime soon; or what I dub, the Hydra-Monstersyndrome.

"Afghan President doubts NATO's war against terrorism in Afghanistan," by Farhad Peikar forSouth Asia News, November 26 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Kabul - Seven years after the fall of the Taliban in the US- led invasion in Afghanistan, the NATO war on terrorism remains 'unclear', President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday - and demanded a timeline for its success.

'This fight against terrorism and civilian casualties has been continuing for the past seven years. Our villages are bombarded, our people are getting killed,' Karzai told a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer in his presidential palace.

Karzai said Afghanistan was burning because of 'a war which is unclear what it is for, and what we are doing.'

Karzai's remarks came a day after he told the representatives of 14 members of the UN Security Council in Kabul that the Afghan people wanted to know that how long the fight against terrorism would continue.

'The Afghans don't understand any more how a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with entire international community behind them - yet still we are not able to defeat the Taliban,' Karzai's office said in a statement.

The UNSC delegation headed by Giulio Terzi, Italy's ambassador to the Security Council arrived in Kabul for a three-day-visit on Monday.

'It is better that you should set a timeline for your victory, for the victory of all us against terrorism. Not a timeline for withdrawal, but set a date when this war can succeed, and under what conditions this war can succeed,' Karzai told reporters...

A profound question with critical implications.