Motus Mentis

This from John McCreary of NightWatch, on yesterday’s Taliban attack in Kabul (my emphasis):

Afghanistan: Special comment: The details of the five-hour complex attack in Kabul have been reported all day. An extremely knowledgeable, well-informed and brilliant Reader provided feedback that most of the news coverage is factually wrong, but NightWatch will provide more details as its sources clarify them.

Particularly misleading among the media comments are those that posit that the Taliban sent a signal or that the attack is part of the propaganda struggle. Those comments trivialize the Taliban achievement of destroying the security bubble associated with the most sensitive Coalition buildings in Kabul.

The media comments are comparable to describing the 1968 Tet offensive in South Vietnam as a tactical failure. That statement is accurate, but it is simply irrelevant. The Tet offensive in South Vietnam won the political and psychological war. It was a strategic victory, enabled by the military sacrifices..

Three major Taliban attacks have taken place in Kabul this summer. To characterize them as part of a public relations contest or signal-sending is to miss the point entirely. One such attack is a perhaps good fortune. A second might have been a coincidence, but three is a strategic trend.

Violent instability is always centripetal – it seeks the center of power. The images of the Coalition and Afghan forces fighting to defend themselves in Kabul mean the insurgency has reached the center of power. The small casualty count only means that the Taliban cannot yet seize power in Kabul. But if the Coalition were winning, these attacks should never have taken place at all. Kabul of all places should be kept secure, if the lessons of Tet 1968 had been learned.

The attacks signify that the Taliban have crossed a strategic threshold. The Afghans know the Coalition cannot guarantee their protection because the Coalition cannot be confident of its ability to protect its own soldiers and complexes. It does no lasting good to keep Helmand Province secure for a while, but repeatedly suffer these kinds of attacks in Kabul.