The New Taliban

From everything I have recently studied the New Taliban is very different from the old Taliban in a few different ways. The old Taliban was much more ideological. The new young Taliban is seeking primarily revenge for a relative or friend that has died at the hands of American, Afghan government or Coalition troops.

Understanding this might be very important because the single cause that this can come down to is "Collateral damage". In other words every time a drone sends a hellfire missile to "take out" a high level Taliban target many others die as well. Each of these people has relatives and the young and old men of those relatives might swear vengeance for their deaths. So, potentially there could be 100 new Taliban recruits for every person killed by "collateral damage".

This would not make sense to most nationalistic Westernized educated people. However, in Taliban country(Pakistan and Afghanistan) people mostly are tribal, uneducated, and not nationalistic unless they are educated which most people are not. So, we are dealing with a more tribal mentality which is very familial based.

One of the only ways I can see to deal with this problem realistically is to pay of the people who feel offended. Because that is what happens between tribes that decide not to kill each other. Either one tribe genocides the other or the offending tribe pays for the deaths caused by one of its members. To understand this is to save American and Coalition lives. By paying off a tribe for the offense of killing one or more of its members a loyalty can be bought. Now, to nationalistic people this might be offensive. However, between tribal people as long as this is done according to their traditions it is acceptable.

It is one of the reasons General Petraeus was successful in Iraq with the Sunni Tribesmen. Being paid off bought their loyalty for a time and saved many many American and Coalition lives.