NATO’s Afghanistan strategy being in doldrums has sent a clear message to the natives that foreign troops can achieve very little out here. At this point of time, Mohammad Hanif Atmar’s claim that the local communities can defeat the Taliban in five years, whereas NATO forces will take 15, seems feasible. However, it can’t be possible if Afghanistan forces will try to tackle the menace single handedly. They need expertise and both financial and troop support of other forces too.

Both working together can only dream of defeating the Taliban or it’s not possible, especially when the Taliban have extended their control in southern regions. And what local community and forces is the government talking about? The local villagers are already won over by the Taliban. They strongly support the Taliban way of life and justice – with their own courts and more than 2,000 active fighters in Wardak alone.

The battle this time is much harder.

And let’s not talk about peace and defeat here. There are other problems to tackle first. And what about the support they’re getting from Pakistan (but, here too, the things seems a bit more murky and not at all in the favor of Afghanistan’s overall peace process, if it exists).

It’s time for the Afghan government to talk sensibly.

Local tribes do have an important role to play in the fight against the Taliban. Without their active support the war against terrorism in Afghanistan is all but a lost cause. But to think that the local tribes are capable enough to rout Taliban on their own would be a folly. Without the expertise and firepower of the foreign troops on their side, tribes would be fighting a very difficult battle. It is quite clear that both the forces need to work in unison to lay Taliban to rest once and for all.

For the meantime that ”Afghanisation security” is in the process of forming a stronger force, foreign aid should be employed. The Afghan government should lay down the cards of its plan in battling the Taliban and seek resources to prepare the Afghan troops against the enemies.

The NATO forces are simply there since there is no other solution that they see viable to track down the Taliban. They feel their presence in the region is productive and weakens the angering Taliban groups.

But still local Afghan communities have the major responsibility of protecting their lands against cruelty and abuse.

As of know, Afghanistan seems to be powerless or perhaps lacks the resources to fight back the Taliban so the NATO forces need to be in the region for protection and support.

i don think if this kinda model will work to defeat/rout Taliban...if locals are given the authority i am sure they will come to ass kicking of the current Karzai Govt. There are possibilities that similar days of Taliban with Islamic laws will once again prevail in the ruins of Afghanistan.

Taliban might be defeated but it will be replaced with Afghanisation and i fear it will be any better than the current enemy.

In my view local participation is critical in rooting out the kind of radical ideology from the community that feeds the Taliban. The Taliban could come to power because it brought in a new ideology and was welcomed with open arms by a majority of the Afghans initially.

They thought that it would be the single uniting force with a common ideological factor that would bind the fragmented country and weed out the corrupt warlords whose fiefdoms pockmarked the Afghan landscape prior to Taliban rule after the fall of Najibullah's Soviet-backed government.

This ideology turned out to be highly venomous for the Afghan people who were suffocated no end by the radical Islamic rule changing their traditional way of life. Not only this, it also spread hatred across the world and exported terrorism worldwide.

Now Taliban is no longer an ideological movement. It is purely a terror movement now. Local communities can help reducing the spread of hate ideology, but only so much. They cannot 'unbrainwash' recruits who have turned into zombies controlled by their ideological masters to blow themselves up or fight against peace.

To defeat the Taliban one must defeat the Taliban ideology. The more bombs you drop killing civilians in your fight against terrorism will ironically result in more people willing to blow themselves up.

First the bombs must stop and then the local communities can take over. Look what is happening in Kashmir. The Indian government is not dropping bombs on civilian populations to kill terrorists. The security forces use extreme caution in engaging terrorists. Then they are doing all to win the hearts and minds of the people. This has resulted in a paradigm shift in how Kashmiris think of India today.

The result is all for us to see. Kashmiris do not talk about freedom from India as the way they used to before. The common voices have almost died down. The militants are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain themselves. Therefore we see them taking desparate measures like suicidal attacks. This is in sharp contrast to what Israel is doing in Palestine and Western forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan forces in the NWFP region.

Local communities can help but only if the bombs stop first.

The Afghanistisation of Afghan security will backfire unless and untill the NATO stops killing civilians. Else this will mean that the Afghans siding with the Western forces are collaborators hence, traitors.

It is not as simple as that. There has to be a multi-pronged strategy to bring peace to Afghanistan.