Now That The Obama Speech Is Over, Let's Look Closely At Just What The Taliban Control In Afghanistan

This is a great closeup of the control that the Taliban currently have in Afghanistan from here at The Long War Journal.

You'll be able to see the map detail much clearer than the photo image above so I suggest you check it out.

The fact of the matter is that many things have changed in Afghanistan this year and while Obama waited for close to four months to make a decision on the troop increase in Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't sit on their hands when that decision was made.

The other issue is this - General McChrystal, who Obama hand-picked to head up the War in Afghanistan in March of this year, has clearly changed strategies in trying to protect and influence urban areas in Afghanistan...what has happened thus has been that the Taliban and their imported partners have filled the voids in the outlying provincial areas and that is why you see such large blocks of Taliban control and influence.

I realize that Iraq and Afghanistan are totally different but The Surge in Iraq brought U.S. forces OUT to meet the frontlines of al Qaeda, where they had been sitting back in seclusion and planning their urban attacks. What McChrystal has done up to this point is to constrict our forces in a fall back manuever. The other issue that we are seeing now, of course, is that the Taliban numbers in Afghanistan are soaring as many are crossing back into Afghanistan to flee the persecution of the Pakistani army to the south.