Working with Afghan organizations I've learned that allied/U.S. air strikes killing civilians and U.S. support of Hamid Karzai are the two issues that anger Afghans the most. This is a personal-experience diary; there is much written that reflects what I've heard.
Most Afghans I have talked to want the U.S. and its allies out of their country. They consider U.S. involvement to be the main reason for whatever strength the Taliban has, and U.S. withdrawal would weaken it as well as give the majority of Afghans the opening to oppose it themselves in a number of ways.
Al-Quaeda is believed to be either defunct or gone to Pakistan--either way, not a valid reason for U.S. troops to be in Afghanistan. Taliban recruits are mostly young, attracted by cash offers or the chance of retaliating against the U.S. for damage done to their homes and families by air strikes. I've heard speakers compare the ages and motivations (economic, and defense of family and home) of those recruits with the reasons young people join the U.S. military. Then they note that in both groups, it's the young people who die.
They are unrelentingly cynical about the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. Karzai is considered irredeemably corrupt. Women's organizations in particular point out that he pardoned many men who gang-raped young girls--some of the men being police officials and relatives of Parliament representatives--and pardoned them before they were even charged.
The attitude of impunity, added to the huge amounts of U.S. aid money absorbed by Karzai's associates, and the animals--such as Dostum/Hekmatyar--that inhabit his cabinet, make most Afghans dismissive and angry about "their" government and the U.S., for supporting it.
Violence against women is endemic. The number of young women attempting (and succeeding at) suicide-usually by self-immolation--is rising rapidly. They see no future except one of heavy oppression and the ever-present threat that they will be injured, raped, or killed.
Despite popular belief, there has been much more time in Afghan history when the country had a functioning, centralized government than time without one. What I hear is, let Afghans take care of the Taliban and create their own government.
The country needs major reconstruction, not more war. They're going on their third generation now raised in violence. Hardly anyone knows the construction trades that are vital to rebuilding--they need training. Money from the U.S. distributed by AID is eaten up by U.S. bureacracy before it reaches any Afghan project, so nation-building has to be done a different way--but not by the U.S. military. Our troops, as any military, have a specific purpose and it's not teaching road and bridge building.
My opinion is that the switch to counterinsurgency has no purpose other than to maintain a U.S. military presence and avoid the hue and cry that's bound to be raised in a withdrawal, even one phased over time and including very military operations such as finding and destroying weapons caches. The longer we're there, the more insurgents we'll create (Yossarian lives).
The stated purposes of our entry into Afghanistan were to find and punish bin Laden and al Qaeda, establish women's rights and safety in Afghanistan, and form a democratic government there. None of these purposes have been accomplished or even approximated. We cannot do this in another country, with an army. All we can do there, this way, is to continue the destruction of Afghanistan.
Similar posting also at VetVoice.com