The Taliban comeback?

A visit to Comments from Left Field confronted me with the reality (coming from the reality-based community could it be anything else?) that the Taliban is making a comeback in Afghanistan.

If there was any doubt that the Taliban have been making a comeback, the spectacular prison break at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar should put them to rest:

Afghan and international troops launched a desperate hunt Saturday for more than 1,100 prisoners NATO said escaped a jail in Afghanistan when Taliban rebels blasted it open.

The Taliban said 400 of its own fighters escaped when the rebels attacked the facility in the southern city of Kandahar late Friday with suicide bombs before shooting the guards.

Afghan authorities put the number of prisoners who fled one of the country’s biggest jails at 886, more than 380 of whom were Taliban.

Let's grant that the prison break was spectacular and a boost for Talibanian morale.

Making a comeback?

Kandahar, June 15: More than two dozen insurgents were killed in Afghanistan as security forces hunted for hundreds of militants who escaped from a prison after a brazen Taliban attack, police said on Sunday.

Afghan and international troops have been searching for more than 1,100 escapees who fled after the militant group blasted open the jail in the southern city of Kandahar late on Friday, killing several prison guards.
(ZeeNews)

South of the town of Garmser, where the desert horizon is an undulating blur of heat haze, British forces had faced the Taliban in a largely static war for two years. But in a month of fighting, with more than 100 separate engagements, the Taliban have been successfully pushed back after suffering about 200 dead.
(The Daily Telegraph)

U.S. Marines pushed the Taliban out of this village and the surrounding district in southern Helmand Province so quickly in recent weeks that they called the operation a "catastrophic success."
(Star-Tribune)

While at Base Delhi I saw a copy of the Guardian. The Pakistan correspondent had come down and done a few interviews and the headline on his story was "UK forces fighting losing battle" or some rubbish like that. The facts are simple. We are now dominating Garmsir. We have killed Taliban, taken no casualties and have now pushed and secured further south than any other British army unit. Garmsir is now opening its hospital again. If you ask the locals they said they thought they would never see it again. As I write this, the Taliban in our area of operations are in turmoil, taking heavy casualties every time they feel brave enough to pop up. I don't see this in any way as losing any battle.
(The Guardian UK)

The news on the ground in Afghanistan has been overwhelmingly bad for the Taliban this year. The prison break and Pakistan's increased wavering on pursuing cross-border Taliban movement serve as the only real bright spots for the enemy. The situation in Pakistan is the key to any hopes the Taliban might have of remaining a relevant force in Afghanistan.

The folks in Left Field perhaps support the war in Afghanistan--many on the left do--but they criticize the handling of the war. Ironically (?) the gripe is the lack of troops. Why aren't we trying the brilliant Democratic plan proposed for Iraq? Simply leave in order to encourage Afghan forces to step up and take charge.

The grousing from the left is misplaced. The strategy adopted by Petraeus in Iraq is largely being employed in Afghanistan with considerable success, though some of our NATO partners aren't entirely on board. And yet again the left is arguing the reverse of its Iraq argument: Instead of encouraging increased participation from our NATO allies, they want the U.S. to increase its role (if only all those U.S. troops weren't eradicating AQI a couple of countries away!).

Are the Left Fielders recommending an incoherent approach to foreign policy? Looks like it at first blush, anyway. But I like the feistiness I see from the site, so I'm bumping Alan Colmes' disappointing "LiberalLand" from the Sith Blogroll. Orson Scott Card will retain the position as top dog among the liberals, however, even though he supports the war.