McClatchy reports:
WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration reconsiders its Afghanistan policy, White House officials are minimizing warnings from the intelligence community, the military and the State Department about the risks of adopting a limited strategy focused on al Qaida, U.S. intelligence, diplomatic and military officials told McClatchy. Recent U.S. intelligence assessments have found that the Taliban and other Pakistan-based groups that are fighting U.S.-led forces have much closer ties to al Qaida now than they did before 9/11, would allow the terrorist network to re-establish bases in Afghanistan and would help Osama bin Laden export his radical brand of Islam to Afghanistan’s neighbors and beyond, the officials said. McClatchy interviewed more than 15 senior and mid-level U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic officials, all of whom said they concurred with the assessments. All of them requested anonymity because the assessments are classified and the officials weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The Obama administration is not “politicizing intelligence,” they’re just ignoring what’s inconvenient. In this case, it’s the fact that the Taliban and al Qaeda are, at this point, inextricably linked. There may be “moderate” elements within the Taliban that can be reconciled to the government in Kabul and the U.S. troop presence, just as there were “moderate” al Qaeda fighters in Iraq who were cleaved from that group and convinced to switch sides. But as a group, the Taliban is no different than al Qaeda proper — it must be routed. And the fact that this comes from Jonathan Landay — this guy is like the Michael Moore of wire service reporting. If he says the Obama administration is putting its head in the sand rather than face a very real threat to American national security…you better believe it.
