Taliban and Hells Angels: Same Difference

Taliban and Hells Angels: Same Difference – Jason Thomas, The Interpreter.

In many respects, the war against the Taliban is no different to a war on gangs such as the Hells Angels. Both rely on a breakdown in the socio-economic conditions that force sections of the community to make unfortunate decisions. Where the community is ravaged by violence, drugs and intergenerational deprivation, how do you stop people supporting the Taliban or their local gang? This is how I began to look at the struggle against the Taliban during my time in Afghanistan.

Counterinsurgency is the military’s version of what criminal and social justice systems have been doing for years. Whether it’s Afghanistan or the Bronx, the population is the prize and it is no longer acceptable just to shoot the bad guys.

Counterinsurgency has become a blindingly complex approach to winning the war in Afghanistan. Fighting the Taliban has become a multi-layered offensive that combines the maintenance of security, the restoration of law and order, community and tribal mapping (‘human terrain analysis’), rebuilding social, health and educational facilities, establishing systems of governance and straight-out capturing and killing the enemy. Counterinsurgency is only effective by winning on all these fronts…

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