The Taliban isn't fighting for development, but against progress. They're reactionaries, not revolutionaries.
Peters explains:
Our current hearts-and-minds approach that seeks to avoid "unnecessary" combat gets it exactly wrong: Religious warriors can't be bought with new roads, wells and vaccinations. On the contrary, over two millennia of religious revolts tells us that fanatic uprisings can only be subdued by killing the true believers.On one level, rural Pashtuns are hillbillies who just don't want the revenuers coming up their hollow, but the problem's greater than that. Our "heavy footprint" played into the hands of propagandists for jihad, who depicted us as infidel invaders (as we told ourselves that Islam was irrelevant). Faced with zealous believers who regard death as a promotion, we pretend we're fighting Canadians in pajamas.
How ridiculous is this? Peters continues:
The Taliban, al Qaeda and other Muslim terror organizations announce repeatedly that they're waging jihad. Our response? We insist that our enemies don't know what they're talking about. This is the stuff of Monty Python routines, not serious wartime analysis.He concludes:
In Afghanistan, we're imagining the enemy we want, rather than seeking to understand the enemy we face.
Peters tends to favor the Roman model of dealing with rebellious tribes. He overlooks the modern world's revulsion with mass murder.On the other hand, there is something to be admired in the notion of granting the wish of someone who wishes to die fighting you.
