"See You Soon, If We’re Still Alive"

'Sons of Afghanistan' in the making? Not really. Whereas in Iraq the fiduciary aspect of the US-sons relationship was important, the following gives the impression that with the Talibs, it will be impossible!

Alex Strick VAN Linschoten, Felix Kuehn in FP/ here

"... In Kandahar, the Taliban are a fact of life — not necessarily liked, but present nonetheless. The traditional Pashtun recourse to healthy dollops of pragmatism means that a government official can enjoy live music with a Talib, even while each has full knowledge of who the other is. These lines are blurred and the tectonics shift constantly wherever you go in Kandahar. The government is apparently fighting ‘the Taliban,’ this amorphous force that everybody has so much trouble defining, but with whom, at an individual level, there seems to be plenty of room to sit and do business. Indeed, previous governors of Kandahar regularly called and conferred with their ostensible enemy, the Taliban shadow governor.’ More than once, we have sat down to dinner with Afghans who had been fighting Canadians or Americans in neighboring districts earlier that afternoon........... 

and in the NYTImes, David Rohde wrote

“Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of ‘Al Qaeda lite,’ a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan. Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters...."