Back from Afghanistan, Journalist Nir Rosen Says Taliban Takeover Looks "Irreversible"

Amy Goodman: The United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, warned the Security Council on Tuesday that violence in Afghanistan is the highest it's been in six years. He also noted positive developments in the country and cautioned against taking a "gloom and doom" approach.

Earlier this week, NATO commander General David McKiernan criticized negative news reports and denied that NATO was losing the war in Afghanistan. He was speaking shortly after NATO forces repulsed a major Taliban attack on the capital of Helmand province, killing over 50 Taliban fighters.

Gen. David McKiernan: The insurgency will not win in this country. The vast majority of the people that live here do not want to see the Taliban or another form of radical leadership back in power in this country. And we certainly need more military forces here. But I will be the first to tell you that additional military forces by themselves will not guarantee victory for the Afghan people.

AG: Meanwhile, back on the election trail, increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is an issue both Senator Obama and Senator McCain agree on. I want to turn to excerpts from last month's presidential debate at the University of Mississippi.

Sen. Barack Obama: I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now. And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible, because it's been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better.

Sen. John McCain: And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn't understand, it's got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq, that's going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.

AG: Investigative journalist Nir Rosen has just returned from Afghanistan, where he was with the Taliban, traveled far from capital city of Kabul, "Afghanistan's version of the Green Zone." He doesn't think the U.S. or NATO forces are winning in Afghanistan. His latest article for Rolling Stone, coming out October 30th, is called "How We Lost the War We Won: A Journey into Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan." Nir Rosen joins us in the firehouse studio.

Welcome, Nir.

Nir Rosen: Thank you.

AG: So, you were, in a sense, embedded with the Taliban for a few days in Afghanistan. Where were you, and what was it like?

NR: Well, two Taliban commanders from Ghazni Province picked me up in Kabul and drove me down south to Ghazni, which is about 100-120 miles south of Kabul. You leave Kabul, you go through the province of Vardak, and then you get to Ghazni. And the fact that two Taliban commanders could pick me up in Kabul and drive me down in itself says something.

But as soon as we left Kabul Province and we were in Vardak, we were basically in a war zone. The famous Kabul to Kandahar highway, which was a hallmark of the coalition success of reconstruction in Afghanistan, is utterly destroyed. Craters have just torn the road to pieces all the way down. These are craters resulting from IEDs, from roadside bombs, targeting supply vehicles, logistical supply trucks that provide supplies for the Americans and the British. And just the trucks are littering both sides of the highway all the way down. Within about 30 minutes of leaving Kabul, we were in the middle of a war zone, and Taliban were fighting the Americans. And we had to wait a few hundred meters away with a few hundred other people for the fighting to stop. A little bit further down the road, there was more fighting.

And then, once we got to the province of Ghazni, we were basically in Taliban-controlled territory. They have checkpoints there during the day, where they stop cars and take people out, kill them if they want to. They conduct daytime patrols in their villages with rocket-propelled grenades on their backs, with fairly large groups, some six to eight, ten people with machine guns. They conduct trials, adjudicating disputes between farmers, etc. They execute spies. They arrested a young man when I was there for being seen walking with a girl. I mean, they feel extremely confident and comfortable even in the day, as if there were no Americans in the country.