Afstan: President Obama looking for an out--or applying pressure?/Taliban funding

1) Emanuel says U.S. must gauge viability of government in Kabul

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday that before a decision is made on whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the United States must assess the strength and viability of the Afghan government.

"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop level if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing the Afghan country," Emanuel said on CNN's "State of the Union."...

More from Brian Platt at The Canada-Afghanistan Blog.

2) Many Sources Feed Taliban’s War Chest

The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash.

Estimates of the Taliban’s annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are frustrating American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.

Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban’s financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent.

“I don’t believe we can significantly alter their effectiveness by cutting off their money right now,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington State Democrat on the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan last month. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. It’s just bigger and more complex than we can effectively stop.”

The Taliban’s ability to raise money complicates the Obama administration’s decision to deploy more United States troops to Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, whether the deployment of 10,000 Marines over the summer to Helmand Province, the heart of the opium production, will have a sustaining impact on the insurgency’s cash flow. And American officials are debating whether cracking down on the drug trade will anger farmers dependent on it for their livelihood.

But even if the United States and its allies were able to stanch the money flow, it is not clear how much impact it would have. It does not cost much to train, equip and pay for the insurgency in impoverished Afghanistan — fighters typically earn $200 to $500 a month — and to bribe local Afghan security and government officials...

Bruce R. at Flit has another take on funding the Taliban:

On bribery and counterinsurgency
...
make no mistake: "tribe-bribing" is part and parcel of effective counterinsurgency. It's a valid tactic to knock the other guy's pieces off the board, and if the McChrystal approach takes hold and starts showing success, we'll see more, not less of it. If it means less ramp ceremonies in the end, I'm personally good with it...