Afghanistan

[Minimalist]

As the next looming international catastrophe I thought it should have its own thread.

Now, in our never-ending effort to pretend that the Taliban is an "army" just like ours we have been chasing the "command structure" and perpetually killing the #2 man and trying to feel very good about ourselves.  Which makes this announcement somewhat annoying.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/taliban-...elligence/

Taliban leader Mullah Omar died two years ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency spokesman Haseeb Sediqi said Wednesday.

So two questions arise.  One.  Why didn't Afghan "intelligence" know that the enemy "commander" died two years ago?  Question 1 B. could be "why didn't US intelligence know, either?"

And Two:  Perhaps this fanatical obsession to hunt down and kill "commanders" is misplaced since it doesn't seem to make a fucking bit of difference to them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/world/....html?_r=0

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have seized territory across three provinces in northern Afghanistan in recent days, as the government in Kabul has struggled to reinforce isolated outposts amid the insurgent offensive.

More than 100 police officers in the north have surrendered to the Taliban in this latest campaign, and more than a thousand men — including some soldiers, but mostly fighters with pro-government militias — have retreated. The Taliban’s momentum has even reached Afghanistan’s extreme northeast, which was once the mountain redoubt of the anti-Taliban resistance in the 1990s, when the group governed the country.

They did this without their "leader?"