A l’appui de cette assertion simpliste, l’analyse sur MilitaryBlog de l’affaire du porte-avions-chinois-sur-un-lac…

In The American Conservative (August 01, 2009 issue) D.C.-based freelance reporter Kelley Beaucar Vlahos gives a short, but well delivered, insight of the D.C. side of the US A’Stan COIN doctrine (Nagl, Kilcullen, Petraeus, CNAS et allii). Enjoy reading The American Conservative – One-Sided COIN
I tend to apreciate AmConMag. In papers previously posted on TAC’s website, you can read a certain Paul Robinson (author of a book on the history of Soviet economic and technical assistance to Afghanistan) quietly stating that We aren’t the first to try nation-building in Afghanistan and a review of the latest encyclical from the Holy Father, titled Benedict vs the Neocons, nonetheless…

Youtube video of Devid Kilcullen discussing his latest book at authors@google, with interesting ideas such as « accidental guerilla ». Thanks Andrew Exum.
Also worth reading, from the abovementioned pair, is Death From Above, Outrage Down Below, published in the NYT. To read in conjunction with their Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan (pdf).

Jugez-en :

Arrêté du 4 mars 2008 portant modification de l’arrêté du 18 janvier 2001 relatif aux logements de représentation concédés à des autorités
(…)
Liste des autorités bénéficiant d’un logement de représentation
(…)
Général commandant la brigade du génie, gouverneur militaire de Strasbourg.
Général commandant la 4e brigade aéromobile, gouverneur militaire de Nancy.
Général commandant la 1re brigade mécanisée.
Général commandant la 11e brigade parachutiste.
Général commandant la 27e brigade d’infanterie de montagne.
Général commandant la 6e brigade légère blindée.
Général commandant la 2e brigade blindée.
(…)

[source]

I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
William Cowper, ‘Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk‘ (1782), lines 1-4

David Tate puts the difference between the different kind of bad guys in A’stan quite bluntly:

…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 [X]

And David to suggest we label the bad guys, all flavors of them, as AGF, for Anti Government Forces.