A Battlefield Tourist

Op Ed: What’s This AGF Crap!?

May 19 at 8:08pm by David Tate

Listen, it’s time to coin a proper term to get the press, and public, in line with the facts.  It is time to officially coronate the enemies of the Afghan government, and ultimately coalition forces, as Anti Government Forces or AGF for short. 

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, because frankly, I have none.  However, I do want to post two challenges in regards to my newly coined acronym.  The fact is, the coalition are fighting two distinct insurgencies in Afghanistan.  The first, that keeps those in Regional Command South busy, is certainly a primarily Pashtun-led insurgency that is nationalist and religiously based to an extreme.  However, there are also drug dealers, foreigners and criminals also well represented.

In Regional Command East, not only are you dealing with Pashtun nationalists, but wahabbi extremists, islamic revolutionaries, timber barons, drug smuglers, al Qaeda operatives, nationalists, opportunists and, of course, Taliban.

Point is, there are dozens of groups with dozens of issues loosely operating together in a fluidity of rivalry, opportunity and convenience and they are NOT all Taliban.  They ARE all AGF.

Challenges:  The press needs to call it as it is… AGF.  Second, someone with more time than me please write an article about all the AGF!   I’ll publish it!