The money funding the Taliban in Afghanistan is coming from the US taxpayer via private contractors paying them not to attack vehicles on supply routes. It's also coming largely from countries who are supposedly our allies like Saudi Arabia. Add to that the billions in illegal opium trade which was nearly eradicated before the US entered the scene.


The old canard of "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" is losing it's muster.

Al CIA-duh is largely comprised of dirt poor illiterate goat farmers sick and tired of seeing their homeland occupied by a foreign army. The enemy's recruitment hook depends on the US bombing civilian wedding parties with un-manned drone strikes in cross border regions. That and the lop-sided arrangement us Americans keep with the Israelis. Take away those two very important recruitment tools and these radical jihadi organizations will be hard pressed to find new blood.

These arrangements of paying tribal warlords to ally with us in order to keep the majority of our troops out of harm's way are the same types of arrangements that lead to the creation of groups like Al Qaeda, Jundallah, and the Mujahudeen. Should be proof enough to most that playing with a hornet's nest is no way to conduct foreign policy. We'd be better served by minding our own business and letting countries sort out their own domestic issues.

BTW - I've heard the oil card frequently played and in my opinion I don't think it plays into the equation. The US makes up what percentage of the crude oil purchase market? If we stop buying (like we ever would) what in the hell are they going to do with all that oil? Drink it?