Taliban Really a Threat?

 The US envoy to Afghanistan has told the BBC that western troops are needed in Afghanistan to fight people who represent “a direct threat”.

It would seem that the US are having to think pretty hard in their ‘desperate ways to convince the electorate to support me ‘  bag.  Apparently the US envoy believes the Taliban in Afghanistan represent a threat to the US, the Western allies, and Pakistan.  Now, I understand why we invaded Afghanistan, we wanted to punish the impoverished people of the state for allowing their brutal dictators to support a terrorist organization.  O’yes, they’ll regret allowing themselves to be oppressed. 

But seriously, how long did it take to destroy the military capacity of the Taliban?  Were they really a threat eight years ago when we commenced war against them?  No, clearly they were no more a military threat than Iceland is to Russia.  Now that we’ve smashed their country to pieces, destroyed its infrastructure, and dismantled their régime, I think its fair to say that they are not a threat to us, even if we withdrew.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why we are still there.  We said that we would do something, and its just bad form to  leave now.  It would send the wrong signal to the world: ‘bully us and we’ll leave’ it would say.  But lets be honest about that.  We need to bring in enough troops to crush resistance, install and puppet regime that has at least legitimacy.  Then, we need to leave.