The article actually links out to other sites to provide sources, but for a piece with a dateline there are no sourced quotes – very disappointing.

The reporting here is excellent, but I'm concerned with the background information. Americans have been involved in this sort of proxy arming before (in the '80's), and the consequences were grave. The article mentions this, but doesn't give concerns their due. For instance, there's no comment from a critic of this strategy.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of essentially all other recent reporting about Afghanistan is the disconnect between two major story lines: the fact that the Afghans have repelled invaders for centuries on the one hand, and the patronizing attitude that the Afghans do not know how to fight on the other. In this important report, Dexter Filkins has found the missing and essential story, that of the village elders and communities who are standing up to those Taliban who threaten them, raising the essential question of how best to help Afghan communities protect themselves from those among the Taliban who seek to intimidate them and kill their elders without undermining the elders' independent authority on the one hand, or enabling ... More »