Taliban v. Al-Qaeda

TW: The world is not black and white. We tend to conflate far too many concepts especially related to Al Qaeda. Conflation of concepts got us mired in Iraq (terrorism/Saddam/nationalism/democracy/WMD got all twisted together into a stinking morass). John McCain wants to conflate the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the White House is taking a more nuanced approach. Nuance is complicated, can we deal with it? Fighting Al Qaeda must be nuanced otherwise we should be inside Pakistan today not with drones and a few special forces but the entire U.S. Army and Marine Corps.

From NBC News:
"Today, the debate over the war in Afghanistan and the war with al- Qaeda enters another stage as the president puts a spotlight on the efforts his administration (and President Bush's administration) has put into attacking al Qaeda in countries OUTSIDE of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border...It gets to the nut of the debate inside the White house: how much of the war against al Qaeda is confined to the Af-Pak region and how much of it is still global? Senior officials involved in the day-to-day terror battle tell us that they don't want folks to conflate al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Al-Qaeda is viewed as a global terror threat. The Taliban is viewed by the administration as an "indigenous extremist organization" focused on destabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. As one administration official told NBC News, the goal is to defeat the Taliban but the goal is to DESTROY al-Qaeda. That may seem like nuance but it gets at one other debate point, which is: just how much of a national security threat is the TALIBAN.

...Don't miss John McCain on the TODAY show arguing that you can't separate al Qaeda and the Taliban. "The Taliban is making gains. Al-Qaeda will return if the Taliban takes over, not to mention the horrible things that would happen to the Afghan people if the Taliban returned to power. But they're not…I strongly disagree with those who allege they are separate problems. They've worked together in the past, they would work together in the future..."