How to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan / Pakistan (and win the war on terror)

[dragonstar57]

Those walls u listed as examples failed. There was a point in history where the best defence became a strong offense.

 

I want Afghanistan to succeed but we are not doing what is necessary, if you think your answers will solve it, then go right ahead and tell the generals your idea.

 

Also the Taliban promised security, and they brought it when Afghanistan was broken up into territories controlled by warlords. In my opinion, they were too harsh, especially on the women and their biggest mistake was harbouring Al queda.

all defenses fail eventually most of the walls failed because they were not attacked from the direction the walls were designed to be effective against ie. the roman walls in England didn't help defend Rome from Germany.

[Peter Dow]

This war we are fighting is not against a religion, but a civilization. An old and backwards civilization. Our is not perfect, but it is the best we have, and worth fighting for.

Would that be the "backward" enemy who flew our jet-engine powered air-planes into our skyscrapers, broadcasts its propaganda from our satellites in space, promotes martyrdom videos of suicide bombers on our internet, sustains itself from our supply lines and which is allied to the military intelligence agency of Pakistan armed with nuclear-weapons first developed by our scientists?

 

It seems this "backward" enemy is very adept at employing our own advanced technology against us. Modern civilization arms both sides of this war.

 

If we fight only for a civilisation which prefers neutrality then the inevitable result will be politicians appointing generals who seek peace talks with the enemy at the earliest opportunity.

 

See how civil and civilised our leaders are when meeting and greeting the enemy leaders! But that's not how you win a war, is it?

 

President Bush with General Pervez Musharraf - The Pakistani ISI organises and supplies the Taliban

 

President Obama bowing to the Saudi King - Saudi Arabia funds more jihadi terrorism globally than any other state.

 

VIDEO: America's 'allies' Saudi & Pakistan: 'enemies' more like!

 

I maintain that the description of our war as a "war on terror", on terrorists, on the states who sponsor terrorists, on states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is a better description.

 

Civilisation is not somehow going to fight this war to victory for us. If we allow our political leaders to appoint incompetent generals who don't know how to identify the real enemy and fight to win then civilization will allow the march of history to our eventual defeat in this war.

 

If we are to win this war we must take political action to appoint competent generals.

 

I quote a lesson from history of what happened to "civilization" represented by the British Empire in Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires in 1842 under Her Majesty's Major General William Elphinstone.

 

Wikipedia: 1842 retreat from Kabul / Massacre of Elphinstone's Army

 

The Massacre of Elphinstone's Army was the destruction by Afghan forces, led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, of a combined British and Indian force of the British East India Company, led by Major General William Elphinstone, in January 1842.

After the British and Indian troops captured Kabul in 1839, an Afghan uprising forced the occupying garrison out of the city. The East India Company army of 4,500 troops, along with 12,000 civilian workers, family members and other camp-followers, left Kabul on 6 January 1842. They attempted to reach the British garrison at Jalalabad, 90 miles (140 km) away, but were immediately harassed by Afghan forces. The last organised remnants were eventually annihilated near Gandamak on 13 January.[2]

 

General Elphinstone ... was a man of high birth and perfect manners but is also regarded as "the most incompetent soldier who ever became general"

 

Afghanistan is not a forgiving place for incompetent generals.

 

We have invested trillions of dollars in the war on terror.

"trillions"? The US has spent only $1.3+ trillion and counting according to the Cost of War website.

 

The UK's costs have been modest in comparison - maybe $30 billion. So I would have thought the grand total for all countries is unlikely to break the $2 trillion overdraft limit - the banks will be pleased!

 

"invested"?

Actually, some of this money has been "invested" but some has been wasted, not invested.

 

Our homeland security is much improved thanks to investment and focus on the gaping holes in our previous security plans.

 

Billions of dollars given to Pakistan for questionable "help" in the war on terror has been wasted. Yes Pakistan has handed over Al Qaeda small-fry and allowed (at a high price) our supply lines to run through Pakistan to Afghanistan but Pakistani has not stopped its ISI sponsoring terrorism and simply have taken our money and spent some of it on recruiting, training and supplying more terrorists and on more on nuclear weapons and missiles.

 

The war on terror has been fought inefficiently. Some low cost anti-terrorist measures such as stopping satellite TV promotion of terrorism have not been taken.

 

What if we spent that money on school and clean energy for them instead of war machines?

The Taliban would ban the girls from going to school and insist that the boys learn the Koran and some grow up to be suicide bombers. Any teacher who defied the Taliban could have their heads cut off, be stoned etc so most teachers would run a mile from Taliban schools.

 

How much more clean energy would the Taliban need to grow poppies to make opium from? The sun provides plenty already.

 

The Taliban don't want to promote clean energy like wind turbines because they get a lot of their money from sponsors who are very rich from sale of oil and gas - Saudi Arabia and Iran.

 

If a clean energy person goes to the Taliban to promote clean energy to them the chances are the Taliban are likely to drive him or her away for being, in their eyes, "an infidel".

 

We can't change the Taliban's ways by bribing them. NATO-ISAF has been bribing them to let our supplies through and they use the money to re-arm with more bombs and ammunition to kill our soldiers with.

 

The only wise course of action to deal with the Taliban terrorism is to win the war against the Taliban more efficiently by insisting on political action to appoint competent generals who don't waste money.

 

Once the Taliban have been defeated the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan will turn to better leaders who would fund schools and install clean energy generators.

 

You are so antagonistic you make it very difficult to support your point of view.

It is difficult for almost everyone to understand my complex point of view and although agreement with me may often be reached on the broad thrust of my point of view nevertheless few truly understand all the details which comprise my point of view.

 

The obscure details of my point view others find convenient to be unaware of, ignore, skate over, misunderstand, conflate or tacitly disagree with me about. Whereas I would rather be fully understood and any disagreements aired than be misunderstood and humoured.

 

Unfortunately, this does often appear to make me present as confrontational or "antagonistic" and consequently I often find people refuse to entertain my point of view any further and shut me out wherever possible. Forum administrators ban me. University managers exclude me. This is why today as on all days I am home alone.

 

My powers and interest in diplomacy are inversely proportional to my powers and interest in forensic details. Unlike my favourite political scientist Condoleezza Rice, I lack the personal skills to disagree without becoming disagreeable.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

I do not appreciate having words put into my mouth,

Fair enough. So you should appreciate posting in such a forum as this where you get to post your own replies in your own words.

 

Actually, I was asking the questions you quoted.

 

"Should be" or "must be"? Isn't fighting to win a necessity for you? Is it acceptable to you if our lame politicians and generals fight so incompetently as to risk a draw or a loss in a war?

 

Is it ever acceptable that our soldiers' lives are sacrificed on the battlefield to little strategic purpose? Isn't that an outrage, for you?

 

If you don't like the loaded wording of my questions, fair enough, then you can address my points in your own words if you prefer.

 

when i said we should fight to win if we fight at all I was agreeing with you.

 

Well my point of view is rather more than "we should fight to win" and my questions suggest that I am saying we must fight to win but our generals aren't clearly winning as they must do and that's unacceptable performance in office to me, though US and other NATO country politicians seem to prefer to pursue peace talks with the enemy whereas my political approach would be to replace the poorly performing generals with better, more competent ones who are capable of winning.

 

Do you agree with me on that or if not, why not? My style of questioning seems to have worked because you went on to offer up the sort of excuses our generals may be giving for their poor performance. OK so let's examine those excuses.

 

Wars should be fought to win but guerilla fighters that melt back into the population are difficult to fight, the Soviets found this out in Afghanistan as we did in Vietnam.

Any population has little difficulty in identifying guerilla fighters in their midsts to the police if they hate the guerillas and trust the police.

 

However, if the population hates the police and trusts the guerillas then of course it is different and we need to ask why on earth we are working with police who are so hated by the population that they prefer to trust the guerillas?

 

In such circumstances we should cease our co-operation with hated police and ask the population to elect police chiefs they trust and work with them instead.

 

We are not fighting a population

That's right. We are fighting terrorists. We are there to help the population.

 

a population that yearns to be free

Oh I think there are many in Afghanistan and in Pakistan too who yearn to be free of the Taliban.

 

We are not fighting a population that yearns to be free and welcomes us with open arms.

Well there's no reason to demand or expect that we'd be welcomed with open arms. I'd rather expect a population to prefer a foreign army which has come to help to keep its distance most of the time and only come in when we are really needed to deal with enemy Taliban who have set up a base or checkpoint or some other clear target we could hit and help the people defeat the enemy.

 

We would be better off to simply pull out and destroy any military bases that show up from a distance,

Yes pull back our forces from cities, towns and villages and don't use insecure roads, pull back into our most useful military bases and our secure supply routes in the countryside with miles-wide secure perimeter borders to keep the enemy well back as I have described.

 

But no do not pull out of the country altogether while the enemy still threatens us and the population.

 

the people who attacked us were only able to do so because we weren't expecting it.

Whilst security and defence is essential the best defence is attack and that's why we have pursued the enemy back to their homeland or where their bases are. A purely defensive strategy is vulnerable to the next unexpected attack and there is always some attack the more imaginative terrorists or Holywood movie writers can think of which we have no good defence for. One cannot rely on homeland policing alone. We need an aggressive military strategy to go after the enemy. That does not mean searching Afghan households for Korans - it does mean targeting Taliban enemy forward bases and rear bases such as the University of Jihad and maybe the ISI headquarters as well.

 

To make these people surrender we would have to kill most of them and the ones that surrendered would always have to be watched closely. It is truly a loosing proposition.

We are not trying to make "these people" surrender but "the enemy" surrender. The enemy is not "the people" it is Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their state sponsors. You win wars by killing the enemy.

 

Unless you are willing to kill virtually everyone there winning is not going to happen...

Everyone where, Afghanistan, Pakistan? What a horrible genocidal thought if that is what you are suggesting I might be capable of being willing to contemplate - horrible!

Everyone in a Taliban base? Sure you can kill everyone there but most people do not live in or work out of a Taliban base. Sure winning is going to happen if we kill the enemy.

 

Every time you kill a man his sons and other family members become fighters, how do you fight that?

That is not true. It is not simply not the case when you win a war. When you win a war the other family members don't become fighters or if they were fighting already they surrender and become peace makers.

 

This is not NAZI Germany waging a war between governments there is hardly a government there to start with

It is not Nazi Germany but it is a war between governments, or it should be. We ought to name the Pakistani state and Saudi Arabian state as state sponsors of terrorism we are at war with - a war on their terrorism and that's all. No terrorism, no war.

 

The military intelligence parts of the Pakistani state are indeed supporting the Taliban terrorism. Not all parts of the Pakistani government do sponsor terrorism - for example the Taliban have attacked the conventional Pakistani military and police so there is no love lost between most Pakistani officials and the Taliban. But certain parts of those states or governments do have their proxy agents, the Taliban killing Afghans and our soldiers in Afghanistan to try to establish a client state for those imperialist states of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

 

We can actually help the democratically elected government of Pakistan deal with its ISI sponsoring terrorism which the Pakistani people and their politicians don't want to go to war to defend.

 

and if you think it's not about religion you are naive, the Taliban is all about religion, religious zealots is all they really are and threat of hell fire is a pretty good motivator to a culture that steeped in religion...

Jihadi terrorism is a militant perversion of a peaceful religion but this is not our crusade against Islam. That is an enemy lie which you ought to dismiss.

 

We have no problem nor war with zealous, devout Muslims but that is not what the Taliban are. We have problems and a war with terrorists and that's what the Taliban are.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Peter Dow

[dragonstar57]

Fair enough. So you should appreciate posting in such a forum as this where you get to post your own replies in your own words.

 

Actually, I was asking the questions you quoted.

 

"Should be" or "must be"? Isn't fighting to win a necessity for you? Is it acceptable to you if our lame politicians and generals fight so incompetently as to risk a draw or a loss in a war?

the us doesn't take a more aggressive stance because it is not what the us population wants. no one wants to this war to become an full-scale occupation like you are suggesting. I could imagine someone reading your idea and translating it to "hey guys? Remember Vietnam? LETS DO DAT SHIT AGAIN!!!!!

Any population has little difficulty in identifying guerilla fighters in their midsts to the police if they hate the guerillas and trust the police.

 

However, if the population hates the police and trusts the guerillas then of course it is different and we need to ask why on earth we are working with police who are so hated by the population that they prefer to trust the guerillas?

I would Imagine if another country was occupying America many of the us citizens (I assume this applies to any western nation but my knowledge of the rest of the world is limited) would join a resistance or keep quiet about anything they know, perhaps solely for national pride.

In such circumstances we should cease our co-operation with hated police and ask the population to elect police chiefs they trust and work with them instead.

 

 

That's right. We are fighting terrorists. We are there to help the population.

a population who doesn't trust us and shares many beliefs with the people we are fighting.

 

Oh I think there are many in Afghanistan and in Pakistan too who yearn to be free of the Taliban.

I am starting think you are looking at it as if al qaeda and the Taliban are the same organization.

they are separate organizations with separate goals.

Whilst security and defence is essential the best defence is attack and that's why we have pursued the enemy back to their homeland or where their bases are. A purely defensive strategy is vulnerable to the next unexpected attack and there is always some attack the more imaginative terrorists or Holywood movie writers can think of which we have no good defence for. One cannot rely on homeland policing alone. We need an aggressive military strategy to go after the enemy. That does not mean searching Afghan households for Korans - it does mean targeting Taliban enemy forward bases and rear bases such as the University of Jihad and maybe the ISI headquarters as well.

:facepalm: and how can we tell who is an enemy and who is not?

We are not trying to make "these people" surrender but "the enemy" surrender. The enemy is not "the people" it is Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their state sponsors. You win wars by killing the enemy.

 

 

Everyone where, Afghanistan, Pakistan? What a horrible genocidal thought if that is what you are suggesting I might be capable of being willing to contemplate - horrible!

Everyone in a Taliban base? Sure you can kill everyone there but most people do not live in or work out of a Taliban base. Sure winning is going to happen if we kill the enemy.

thats what we are trying to tell you these organizations are like a

freaking hydra, cut one head off it grows 2 more

That is not true. It is not simply not the case when you win a war. When you win a war the other family members don't become fighters or if they were fighting already they surrender and become peace makers.

no it is true when you kill a terrorist those who cared for him/her will seek revenge.

It is not Nazi Germany but it is a war between governments, or it should be. We ought to name the Pakistani state and Saudi Arabian state as state sponsors of terrorism we are at war with - a war on their terrorism and that's all. No terrorism, no war.

basically their is no fortress in Normandy to storm, it isn't that simple. their are no lines. their are no enemy beach heads. their is no enemy air support. etc. all their is is some guys with store bought chemicals a gun and a cellphone.

We can actually help the democratically elected government of Pakistan deal with its ISI sponsoring terrorism which the Pakistani people and their politicians don't want to go to war to defend.

I see no reason to assume that Pakistan wouldn't defend its own intelligence service.

 

Jihadi terrorism is a militant perversion of a peaceful religion but this is not our crusade against Islam. That is an enemy lie which you ought to dismiss.

 

We have no problem nor war with zealous, devout Muslims but that is not what the Taliban are. We have problems and a war with terrorists and that's what the Taliban are.

the Taliban are an ousted government trying to re-establish control of Afghanistan they are not international terrorists who fly planes into buildings, they just allowed aforementioned terrorists have bases in their country. (and I would imagine they don't get along to well anymore)

[Peter Dow]

I think you're confused. I said "I've watched BBC documentaries"

More or less. In post #8 of this topic.

 

I've seen BBC documentaries,

 

before you posted your BBC documentary.

No, I first posted my BBC documentary in post #4.

 

I didn't embed this video properly in the opening post.

 

This 2-hour video is of a British TV programme which explains in great detail the role of the Pakistani state via the ISI (Inter-services intelligence) has in supporting the Taliban's war against our forces in Afghanistan.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SkNUorWhc

BBC Documentary - "SECRET PAKISTAN - Double Cross / Backlash" (2 hours)

 

I had meant to post it in post #1, the Opening Post, the Original Post, the "OP" but I messed up. So sorry, my fault, but at least now we've established that this video was not posted as an after thought or as a side show but that it is very important to the topic.

 

 

Therefore, when I made the comment, your comment with the video didn't exist yet. Why are you responding as if I somehow pre-emptively ignored your future comment? That would require time travel.

The video had been posted before your post #8, in my post #4 (which you did not notice) so it did exist. What confused you, it seems, is that I also posted the same video in my post #11 and in my post #18 (which you noticed) which were both after your post #8.

 

I'll get round to watching it tomorrow.

I'd still like to know who has watched all 2 hours of it?

 

I am reasonably confident that any scientist, because scientists are intelligent people, having watched all 2 hours of that video, will identify that the Taliban, whatever else they may be, are also proxies for the Pakistani military intelligence, the ISI, and so this war on terror is, or ought to be, with the Pakistani state sponsors of terrorism.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

Those extreme examples you used... we no longer have an Empire, we're no longer at world war, we aren't Communist China with millions upon millions of people able to work for nothing at all.

 

Just because walls have been built in the past doesn't mean it's practicable today... it's too expensive for a small war like this. Those walls you listed were built to defend homeland territory defence; they didn't travel across the world to build a huge wall for one military operation. And it's easy to see why.

Some of us are engaged in fighting a Global War On Terror (GWOT) and see Afghanistan not on its own but merely one hot spot in a much wider conflict so actually some of us do consider that we are at "world war" of sorts but it being such a low intensity world war it doesn't really warrant the title "WW3" so maybe "WW2.1" or something would be a suitable alternative name to "GWOT"?

 

The extreme military decision was to invade Afghanistan. The question is what do your forces do while they are there?

 

• 
   
  
• Do you secure your supply routes or do you not?
  
• Do you spend a lot on very heavily armoured vehicles to travel routinely along insecure routes and brave road-side bombs hoping that the bomb is smaller than your vehicle can withstand or do you not?
  

 

Next to the extreme decision to invade, those other choices are really a question of military strategy and tactics. What works best?

 

The historical examples I gave demonstrate that when a military force invades enemy-controlled territory to stay for any length of time (or wants to defend their homeland against hostile neighbours) then it makes military sense to secure your positions with defensive fortifications of some kind.

 

Do you think the French would have forgiven the Germans for invading France if Rommel had not have built his Atlantic Wall? Would the French have greeted the Nazi invader general - "Hey Rommel, Bienvenue and Sieg Heil - just so long as you don't build any coastal fortifications here mon ami!"

 

Not that I am comparing our liberating and democratic forces to the forces of the Reich but from the point of view of the enemy the logic of which invader is or isn't "extreme" is not really effected by whether we secure our positions or not.

 

The enemy is going to try to kill us so long as we are there - the question is how do we prevent that until we decide we are pulling out?

 

As for cost, our forces have to live somewhere, the Afghan forces we are paying for have to deploy somewhere. So I am not actually proposing we spend any more than we are already spending.

 

The question is "how should we spend what we are spending?"

 

I am suggesting that we might as well arrange our forces to defend our critical supply lines instead of having our forces sitting like fools along the Afghanistan / Pakistan border while our troops get killed trying to supply along insecure roads.

 

If nothing else, we should learn lessons that the US & NATO generals and their civilian bosses are incompetent and if we are going to win wars we need to have new management of our military.

 

I think a good percentage of Americans want an immediate full withdraw from all conflicts we are currently in.

Well Obama did withdraw US forces from Iraq so maybe he is your best bet for withdrawal from all "conflicts"? Though I don't know what you define as a "conflict"? Is the long-running stand off between North and South Korea a "conflict we are currently in"? 28,500 American military personnel are now deployed in South Korea. Do you think a good percentage of Americans want those withdrawn? Or are you thinking about a good percentage of Ron Paul supporters?

 

Anyway don't feel you have to answer that - it is heading off topic so forget it if you wish.

 

I suggest in this topic we stick to Afghanistan / Pakistan and any other war on terror places but as for withdrawing from Afghanistan immediately, that doesn't seem to be on offer from the only person who can order a withdrawal - the US President. Obama is de-surging his troops which will leave many still there but is running for re-election on a promise that the US combat mission will end "by 2014".

 

What then? It is unclear. Obama says he has signed a "Strategic Partnership Agreement" with Afghanistan but what does that amount to if after 2014 the Afghan government can't hold against the Taliban? Would Obama stay out and let his strategic partner get kicked out of South Afghanistan, out of Kabul? We don't really know.

 

If Romney takes office on 20th January 2013 his approach promises to be "Withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan under a Romney administration will be based on conditions on the ground as assessed by our military commanders."

 

So do you reckon a third party / independent candidate can win election for US President on an isolationist / withdrawal-from-all-conflicts policy? That would not be the brave America we know and love.

 

I think building a huge fortress on supply lines would be unpopular both here and in Afghanistan.

I think it is getting our soldiers killed which is most unpopular. If a fortress supply line saved lives it could be more popular than more deaths by road-side bomb and ambush.

 

it would strengthen the claims we are attempting to take control of the area for oil.

Afghanistan doesn't have any oil. There was a proposal years ago to run an oil or gas pipeline through Afghanistan but that doesn't particularly figure in my proposals. I'd just like a secure route to supply our forces. A nice extra might be to do things like put in a railway to help the Afghan economy while we are there. But I have not really got in mind any particular pipeline plan.

 

Afghanistan should just be a normal country - having appropriate economic activity like anywhere else in the world, activity which the Afghan people there want to get involved with - and it should stop being a place for terrorist training camps set up by the Pakistani ISI to launch attacks on the rest of the world. That's the true plan I have for Afghanistan and anywhere else plagued by these jihadi terrorists. We should beat the terrorists and get back to peace and prosperity. I don't really care much for spinning that as "taking control for oil" because it is untrue and misleading.

 

Iraq was more about oil but not because we wanted control of Iraq's oil ourselves, just that we didn't want Saddam Hussein having control of it to buy / make nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction to threaten the world with.

 

The control of Arab and Iranian oil by pro-jihadi regimes does make it easy for them to fund jihadi terrorism globally so setting an aim for regime-change for those regimes looks like a better war-on-terror move than attempting to completely pacify Afghanistan.

 

To some extent we were lured to Afghanistan like a bull charging a Matador's red cape by our Al Qaeda enemies so as to take our forces out of Arabia and away from where the oil is.

 

 

So abandoning most or all of Afghanistan, bombing the Pakistani ISI from the air and invading Arabia to control the oil fields might be a better strategy than holding on to worthless Afghanistan.

 

Again it would be not be because we want to seize Arabian oil-fields per se - just that we don't want Arab kings to use their oil wealth to fund jihadi terrorism. Any invasion of Arabia ought to be synchronised with regime-change to democratic regimes which benefit the Arab people above all. The greedy Saudi royals don't donate to the Palestinians to help compensate them for lands lost to Israel. Perhaps a more democratic Arabian regime would be more generous to disadvantaged Arabs?

 

Those walls u listed as examples failed.

It is not right to say the Roman Walls or the Great Wall of China "failed" altogether. Those empires lasted a long time and their armies defended much and even won battles using defensive fortifications. One tactic one Roman general used was to surround an enemy fort with a defensive wall of his own and starve the enemy out!

 

The Maginot Line did fail. The Nazis went around the strong parts of the line and penetrated it where it was weakest, by-passed most of the fortifications and proceeded to the undefended interior. Paris itself was undefended by any significant fortifications and its immediate capitulation to the Nazis is an example of how long you can expect to hold out against armoured ground forces without any relevant fortifications.

 

So the fall of Paris and France was more a failure of the particular design of French fortifications nationally rather than a failure of the principle of defensive fortifications. One could imagine another design of fortifications, around Paris, around a supply line to the Channel coast, which could very well have held against the Wehrmacht.

 

The lesson of the Maginot line for Afghanistan is not to put all our eggs in expecting the Afghan / Pakistan border to defend the interior of Afghanistan because enemy forces will get into Afghanistan one way or another and attack our forces while supplying our isolated border bases.

 

As the Nazis got behind the Maginot line, so can the Taliban get into Afghanistan whatever we do on the Afghan / Pakistan border.

 

Our forces have not learned the failure of the Maginot line because they are as recklessly driving around Afghanistan, wrongly expecting themselves to be safe if the border with Pakistan is secure as the French were recklessly thinking themselves safe behind the Maginot line.

 

There was a point in history where the best defence became a strong offense.

It depends on the relative strength of defence and offence.

 

Before the failure of Rommel's Atlantic Wall to Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Allies, the defensive fortifications of the island of Britain held against the threat of Nazi invasion since the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940. The Nazis could not, dare not pursue our forces offensively into Britain because of the strength of our defences. This was partly due to Britain's static defences but equally due to Britain's ability to cut off invading German forces by deploying its naval forces dynamically.

 

My design for supply route defence also depends on dynamic defence which is the ability to deploy reinforcements to any attacked point faster than the enemy can. Therefore it is wrong to see my design as a purely static "wall".

 

Then later in history after the development of nuclear weapons, the best defence became rather threatening the best offensive but never actually using it but instead employing cold war methods until peace might be found. The super-powers avoided taking the strongest offensive action possible against each other for fear of mutually assured destruction.

 

Again with Pakistan we should first attempt more of a cold war approach with the conventional Pakistani military and only go hot with the Taliban and perhaps also go hot with the ISI if needs be using deterrence to avoid a full scale war with Pakistan.

 

I want Afghanistan to succeed but we are not doing what is necessary, if you think your answers will solve it, then go right ahead and tell the generals your idea.

Unfortunately, it is not that easy. Generals are proud people and I lack the diplomatic skills to approach generals in a way that could get them to understand and change their methods. For skills like that we need someone like Condoleezza Rice who negotiated the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Eastern Europe thus more or less ending the cold war.

 

How's your German?

 

But it is important that we do not send Condi to Pakistan because the enemy would not hesitate to assassinate her as they did Benazir Bhutto. We must keep Condi safe at all costs.

 

 

Also the Taliban promised security, and they brought it when Afghanistan was broken up into territories controlled by warlords. In my opinion, they were too harsh, especially on the women and their biggest mistake was harbouring Al queda.

There was no security under Taliban rule for women or for teachers or doctors or engineers or aid workers or non-Muslims. There was security only for some warlords who could defend themselves against the Taliban.

 

The Taliban thought they had created security for themselves but as we will prove in this war on terror ultimately they will not even have that security in their safest of safe bases in Pakistan.

 

all defenses fail eventually

When was Britain last invaded? Not recently.

When was the US last invaded? Not recently.

 

Defences do not have to fail if the design is right, updated as appropriate and well defended by alert defenders.

 

most of the walls failed because they were not attacked from the direction the walls were designed to be effective against ie. the roman walls in England didn't help defend Rome from Germany.

Correct. This is why defensive fortifications must not depend on only one all-or-nothing line of defence but be organised as multiple lines of defence one within another.

Edited August 31, 2012 by Peter Dow

[too-open-minded]

Hey peter your idea might work and all but do you think you could have done anything more productive with the time you spent on devising your idea?

 

We have spent a little over a trillion u.s dollars on the war on terror. Now a trillion dollars is quite a bit of money, maybe your idea could have been a better investment.

 

Then again, maybe trying to do things other than wage war could have been an even more efficient investment.

[Peter Dow]

the us doesn't take a more aggressive stance

Aspects of my plan are more aggressive, though some aspects are more competently defensive.

 

Yes pull back our forces from cities, towns and villages and don't use insecure roads, pull back into our most useful military bases and our secure supply routes in the countryside with miles-wide secure perimeter borders to keep the enemy well back as I have described.

That aspect of my plan is a more defensive stance as regards Afghanistan overall, not a more aggressive stance. It's more cautious in not trying permanently to occupy any of Afghanistan which we can't fully control. It says we would only be more aggressive locally in the vicinity of our supply routes where would we impose much tighter control.

 

 

because it is not what the us population wants.

The US population can't want my plan unless and until it is presented to them by media commentators or political leaders they trust. Even then it will be more acceptable if it is presented as "a new US plan" rather than as "a new plan of some Scotsman no-one has ever heard of". So unless I suddenly and miraculously become as famous to Americans as someone like Tony Blair is then I suggest my plan will need first to be adopted and sponsored by some Americans, maybe who have first found my plan on internet forums such as this?

 

no one wants to this war to become an full-scale occupation like you are suggesting.

Another misreading of my plan. Where did I ever describe my plan as "a full-scale occupation"? Nowhere.

 

You seemed to be replying to this quote

 

"Should be" or "must be"? Isn't fighting to win a necessity for you? Is it acceptable to you if our lame politicians and generals fight so incompetently as to risk a draw or a loss in a war?

 

So it would have been fairer to understand that I am calling for a more competent partial occupation of whatever size of occupation force we decide on, and that I am not calling for a "full-scale" occupation bigger than we have but with the same basic strategy.

 

The military options available to us are infinitely more complex than "Surge or withdraw?" I haven't suggested "surging" or "full-scale".

 

If you want a summary of my plan, I gave one, in 4 points.

 

How to beat the Taliban and win the war on terror

 

It’s never too late to learn lessons and adopt an alternative competent and aggressive military strategy. I have already mentioned the outline points of my plan but I will explain those in a little more here and then provide a lot more detail in subsequent posts.

 

1. The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as "state sponsors of terrorism". We ought to name in addition, the other oil-rich Arab kingdoms who are also financial state sponsors of terrorism. This has implications such as ending bribes and deals with back-stabbing hostile countries and instead waging war against our enemies with the aim of regime change or incapacitating the enemy so that they can do us little more harm. The war could be of varying intensity depending on the enemy concerned and how they respond to our initial attacks, whether they wish to escalate the war or surrender to our reasonable demands.
   
   
2. There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan) In addition, we ought to employ aerial bombing of all other bases for the Taliban in Pakistan. This may have to be extended to include certain Pakistani state bases which are supporting the Taliban - such as the Pakistani ISI headquarters mentioned a lot in the BBC documentary "SECRET PAKISTAN". If this is not handled very carefully, it could escalate into open war with the Pakistani military. I will explain how to manage Pakistan later.
   
   
3. We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West. These satellites are made, launched and maintained by Western companies and should be easy to take over. Other satellites provided to the enemy by non-Western countries could be jammed or destroyed. Air strikes against the enemy's main terrestrial TV transmitter aerials is another option to silence enemy propaganda.
   
   
4. When occupying territory, always ensure secure supply routes from one strong point to another. I will provide a lot of details about how this can be done militarily.
   
   

 

I could imagine someone reading your idea and translating it to "hey guys? Remember Vietnam? LETS DO DAT SHIT AGAIN!!!!!

Well there are some Vietnam-era politicians like John McCain who do have a courageous but rash tendency to support "surging of forces" to do much the same job as existing forces are doing but more so.

 

I say "don't trust the generals, don't give the same generals more military forces to fight with. Let's try to find some smart people who know military strategy to become our generals.".

 

I bet back in Vietnam there were clever military strategists like me who got ignored by stupid generals. I say, no, let's not do that again!

 

So it's incorrect to misread my ideas and to translate a misunderstanding of my plan by categorising it falsely as a "re-do of Vietnam".

 

Rather my inspiration comes not from Vietnam-era generals but from more recent leaders specifically Condoleezza Rice who ended and even won the Cold War as a tough warrior ready to use proportionate force as and when required but who succeeded in ending the Cold War, where others before her had only contained it, by using her keen political insight and diplomatic skills. Condi didn't win the Cold War by surging forces to West Germany and neither is "surging" my approach to Afghanistan.

 

I would Imagine if another country was occupying America many of the us citizens (I assume this applies to any western nation but my knowledge of the rest of the world is limited) would join a resistance or keep quiet about anything they know, perhaps solely for national pride.

American forces were happily stationed in very large numbers in Britain before D-Day, the invasion of mainland Europe in World War 2. Britons knew very well that Americans had sent forces to help liberate us from the enemy who threatened us.

 

Likewise, if Afghans and Pakistanis are told the truth about our motives for intervening there, and if we stop enemy propaganda telling lies about our motives, then there is no reason to expect that Afghans or Pakistanis will support the Taliban.

 

a population who doesn't trust us

We should be trustworthy but not trusting. We should not be so foolish as to trust people we don't know.

 

and shares many beliefs with the people we are fighting.

We can find allies amongst the population who are familiar with the language and customs of the people but who agree that our values of freedom and democracy offer a better future for the population.

 

I am starting think you are looking at it as if al qaeda and the Taliban are the same organization.

they are separate organizations with separate goals.

Both are sponsored by elements within the Pakistani state. Bin Laden was most likely being harboured by the same Paksitani ISI which funds, trains and supplies the Taliban.

 

 

and how can we tell who is an enemy and who is not?

Do you mean on the battlefield? Those who attack our defensive positions can be identified as enemies. That seems so obvious that I wonder if that is what you are asking?

 

The Taliban are the enemy. They've killed thousands of our soldiers. Where's the difficulty in identifying the enemy? Are you of the VP Joe Biden school of thought which says "the Taliban are not the enemy" and which seeks peace talks with the Taliban?

 

 

thats what we are trying to tell you these organizations are like a freaking hydra, cut one head off it grows 2 more

The Pakistani ISI organises many different terrorist organisations, each designed to fight one country or group of countries.

 

The many terrorist heads of the Pakistani ISI hydra

 

• The Taliban to fight Afghanistan and anyone helping Afghans
  
• Lashkar-e-Taiba to fight India and anyone helping Indians
  
• Al Qaeda to fight the USA and anyone helping Americans
  

 

Therefore the answer to all those terrorist "heads" is to kill the body - kill the Pakistani ISI, to stop it growing more terrorist organisations.

 

An important point to note is that we have been feeding the hydra by paying the Pakistani state billions of dollars for so-called "help" against the very terrorist forces their ISI set up. We need to stop funding the enemy.

 

no it is true when you kill a terrorist those who cared for him/her will seek revenge.

Come on now. You are being silly. Are we still at war with Japan and Germany because they are taking revenge for world war 2? No, of course not. There is a time for peace, when the good guys win, as we will win in Afghanistan if we fight smart.

 

 

basically their is no fortress in Normandy to storm, it isn't that simple. their are no lines. their are no enemy beach heads. their is no enemy air support. etc.

There is the University of Jihad and the Pakistani ISI HQ. See point 2 of my plan.

 

all their is is some guys with store bought chemicals a gun and a cellphone.

The Al Qaeda terrorist operatives who attacked USA on 9/11 and London 7/7 could use some initiative, spend money and use the local economy to attack us.

 

However, with the Taliban, most of them are simple people. They are supplied by the Pakistani ISI and get some weapons and money from Iran and Arab kingdoms as well. They don't go shopping for chemicals to make home-made bombs. Most of their weapons are mass-produced for regular armies.

 

Yes a few of the Taliban will be specialists who can convert normal munitions into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to use to mine the Afghan roads. However the Pakistani ISI can at any time they wish provide higher technology mass-produced versions of those IEDs if and when the Taliban IED-makers get killed or captured or if the ISI wish to increase the effectiveness and number of bombs on Afghan roads to kill our soldiers in greater numbers.

 

Most of the Taliban's weapons will be from Pakistani (some Iranian) military stores, maybe some weapons will be bought cheaply from the black-market supplied with weaponry stolen from our NATO supply lines coming through Pakistan.

 

BBC: Pakistan to reopen supply lines to Nato Afghan forces (3rd July 2012)

 

Islamabad confirmed it would not raise transit fees when the lines re-open.

 

US officials say the existing charge of $250 (£160) per truck will not change - Washington had baulked at a Pakistani demand for $5,000 per container to let supplies flow again.

 

£160 per truck? You may ask - what can the Pakistani ISI buy for £160 per truck for their Taliban proxy forces to use to kill us?

 

Quite a lot actually, especially if the Taliban buy cheap on the black market.

 

Recent news.

 

Chistian Science Monitor: Pakistan's black marketers cheer reopening of NATO supply lines (21st August 2012)

 

The reopening of two key NATO supply routes last month not only eased the diplomatic tension between Pakistan and the United States, but benefited a third party as well: Pakistan’s black-market businesses.

 

Pakistan’s active black markets, which stretch from the southern port city of Karachi to northwestern Peshawar, and from the southwestern city of Quetta to the northern tribal belt, used to be flooded with US-made goods, from flak jackets to M-4 rifles, soda, and cigarettes. Then, a few months ago, the underground economy, which largely depends on the NATO supply trucks for supplies, dried up. The thousands of Pakistanis who depended on it for income and cheap supplies were hit hard.

 

“Our business had really gone down [due to closure of NATO supply routes]. But, thank God, things have been settled down, and we are going to reactivate our business,” an arms dealer from Quetta told the Monitor.

 

This arms dealer from Quetta, Pakistan - that is where the Taliban have been based. So he will be selling NATO weapons stolen from NATO supply trucks, sold to the Taliban, funded by the Pakistani ISI with our money given to Pakistan to get our trucks through, which weapons will be used to kill our troops in Afghanistan!

 

Our insecure supply routes through Pakistan and through Afghanistan are supplying the very enemy we are there to try to defeat! Strategic folly of the lowest order of stupidity!

 

I see no reason to assume that Pakistan wouldn't defend its own intelligence service.

The reason is that the Pakistani ISI have betrayed the people of Pakistan, dragging Pakistan into wars with their neighbours and world-wide. Pakistan has every reason to confront their enemy within - their own backstabbing ISI, which was only ever loyal to the fascist generals who set up the ISI to help them impose a military dictatorship on the people of Pakistan and to start seizing other lands to impose an empire. The ISI never was loyal to the Pakistani people nor to the Pakistani nation and we ought to explain that to Pakistanis.

 

the Taliban are an ousted government trying to re-establish control of Afghanistan they are not international terrorists who fly planes into buildings, they just allowed aforementioned terrorists have bases in their country. (and I would imagine they don't get along to well anymore)

The Taliban don't have much of a choice about getting along with whoever their Pakistani ISI masters tell them to get along with.

 

Again and again I get the feeling that people reading this topic have not taken the 2-hours required to watch "SECRET PAKISTAN", the video from the BBC I posted in this topic.

 

I am still asking this.

 

I'd still like to know who has watched all 2 hours of it?

 

I am reasonably confident that any scientist, because scientists are intelligent people, having watched all 2 hours of that video, will identify that the Taliban, whatever else they may be, are also proxies for the Pakistani military intelligence, the ISI, and so this war on terror is, or ought to be, with the Pakistani state sponsors of terrorism.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

The requirement to defend military supply lines in war, to expect the enemy to attack and to attempt to cut any long supply lines is a basic part of classical military strategy.

If there was ever to be a sustained resistance to our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan then any competent military strategist could have predicted that the enemy would wish to attack our supply lines in Iraq and Afghanistan and if we didn't do the correct thing according to classical military strategy and defend those supply lines then it was inevitable that the enemy would mine and ambush our undefended, or poorly defended, supply lines.

Now the US does indeed have academic military experts who do indeed know the importance of this requirement in war and have published relevant articles on the internet, such as this fine example -

Army Logistician

Supply Line Warfare by Dr. Cliff Welborn

The U.S. military has also disrupted the enemy’s supply chain to weaken its fighting capabilities. When we think of a military supply line, we often think of the logistics considerations necessary to keep our own supply chain flowing. However, just as important to military success are tactics for disrupting the enemy supply line. A defensive strategy is to protect our own supply chain; an offensive strategy is to inhibit the supply chain of our enemy. The United States has used both offensive and defensive strategies in many wars, including the Revolutionary War in the 1770s and 1780s, the Civil War in the 1860s, the Plains Indian Wars in the late 19th century, World War II in the 1940s, and the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

but that ancient yet essential military knowledge, that ought to be taught to every officer at every military academy, doesn't seem to be in the brains of the US, British or other NATO generals, who seem to think "patrolling" or "ever bigger MRAPs" is a better plan to try to keep our soldiers safe on otherwise undefended supply routes.

Actually, the better plan is simply establishing a secure perimeter around your supply route which is watched 24/7 from static guard posts all along the route, either side of the route, and a mobile reaction force to reinforce wherever and whenever the enemy concentrates to attack the supply route.

I've suggested in this thread a detailed plan to defend supply routes in Afghanistan but no doubt there are many variations on that theme.

Don't get me wrong, big MRAPs have their uses as a back-up if and when the enemy makes it through the defended perimeter of a supply line but there does clearly need to be a secure perimeter established in the first place otherwise your supply routes remain effectively uncleared territory and anything on the route not protected by tons of armour is simply easy meat for the enemy.

Certain items in my plan, about seizing satellites and what to bomb in Pakistan is new, specific intelligence for the war on terror and is maybe a bit much to expect on day one from our military.

But for military leaders not to know the requirement to defend supply routes, and therefore foolishly to lead our soldiers to die from enemy road side bombs and ambushes - this is unforgivable ignorance on the part of our generals, defense secretaries and Pentagon, NATO and UK MOD civilian support military "experts".

Those in charge don't seem to know the military basics. It's like the donkey-generals who led brave lion-soldiers to their deaths advancing on foot against machine gun nests as in world war 1 - all over again.

It's another famous military disaster and it is no way to win a war (even though we will likely win this war on terror eventually but at a very high cost in blood and treasure.)

[Peter Dow]

Afghanistan: Obama's counsel of despair. Drawdown or ROUT?

 

Could a feeling of strategic despair pervading the White House mean President Obama's drawdown plan could turn into an unseemly rout of US and other NATO-ISAF forces?

 

 

 

New York Times: U.S. Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan

 

President Obama, frustrated in his dealings with President Karzai, is considering speeding up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and even leaving no American troops after 2014

 

WASHINGTON

 

Mr. Obama is committed to ending Americas military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small residual force behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.

 

Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014.

 

A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of it. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistans fragile government exposed to its enemies.

It looks to me like President Obama is getting some "Dark Counsel" as regards pulling out from Afghanistan.

 

First to explain the phrase "Dark Counsel". Have you seen Lord of the Rings? Remember King Theoden and his adviser, Grima Wormtongue, who told him he was weak, could not fight and hope to win, turned out Grima was secretly an agent for Saruman?

 

 

OK remember now? That's "dark counsel".

 

So who is giving Obama, "dark counsel", who is his Grima Wormtongue?

 

Well maybe a lady called Robin Raphel, a former agent for Pakistan, a Washington Lobbyist in the pay of the Pakisan state. Obama has taken her on into her team, in charge of non-military aid to Pakistan, that's billions of dollars worth.

 

 

Wikipedia: Robin Raphel

Robin Lynn Raphel (born 1947) is a career diplomat who is currently the coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan with the rank of ambassador.

 

She was appointed by President Clinton as first Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, a newly created position, where her tenure was highly controversial. Regularly throughout her career, Raphel was described as being "warm" to totalitarian and military regimes, such as the the military governments in Pakistan, and conversely "cool" towards human rights considerations.

 

Her tenure as Assistant Secretary for Near East and South Asian Affairs was marked by perceived hostility towards India and Afghanistan, and "warmth" towards Pakistan and the Taliban, as was extensively documented by the media.

 

Famously, Raphel was hostile towards the Northern Alliance including its leader Ahmed Shah Massoud who she personally pressured to yield to the Taliban.

 

Raphel openly promoted the complete Taliban takeover of all of Afghanistan, until the events of 9/11. Some scholars believe that her perceived "favoritism" towards Pakistan and the Taliban indirectly, if peripherally, contributed to causing 9/11.

 

One commonly-cited factor was her aggressive promotion of Unocal's proposal for the Afghanistan Oil Pipeline, which would have required the defeat of the Northern Alliance.

 

As to U.S. relations with India, the largest and most prosperous state in the region, her tenure was marked as the the "darkest chapter since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971".

 

Upon her dismissal from the Assistant Secretary position by President Clinton and her transfer to the backwater post of Ambassador to Tunisia, U.S. relations with India were reported to have "improved overnight".

 

She also served as a member of the Iraq Reconstruction Team during the Bush administration. She retired from the state department in 2005 after 30 years of service.

 

She soon became a lobbyist for Pakistan at Cassidy & Associates, a Washington lobbying form that was employed by the Government of Pakistan at an annual retainer of $1.2 million.

 

Raphel has been the senior Vice President at the National Defense University in Washington.

 

The Obama Administration appointed Robin Raphel as a member of the team of the late Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative to the Af-Pak region.

Raphel is the enemy within. I would not let this woman within a mile of the White House, but there again, I'm not King Theoden, I mean, President Obama.

 

 

Now instead of a "counsel of despair", I offer a simple explanation of "what went wrong".

 

First let's compare and contrast

• the Afghan war to kick the Taliban out of Afghanistan (12 years, 3000+ coalition deaths and seeking a peace with the enemy who is still threatening a come-back after we pull out next year)

with

• the Gulf War in 1991 to kick Saddam's Iraqi forces out of Kuwait (5 weeks bombing campaign, a 100 hour ground campaign. 500- coalition deaths - a decisive coalition victory)

So wars can be won, quite easily if your generals go about it the right way.

 

The issue is that we have not declared and prosecuted a war against the imperial power in this case, Pakistan.

 

Have a more detailed look at how our generals confronted the imperial power, Iraq, in that Gulf War.

 

Quotes from Wikipedia: Gulf War

 

First there was the 5 weeks bombing campaign -

 

The first priority for Coalition forces was the destruction of Iraq's Air Force and anti-aircraft facilities. The sorties were launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six Coalition carrier battle groups (CVBG) in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

 

The next Coalition targets were command and communication facilities. Saddam Hussein had closely micromanaged Iraqi forces in the IranIraq War, and initiative at lower levels was discouraged. Coalition planners hoped that Iraqi resistance would quickly collapse if deprived of command and control.

 

The air campaign's third and largest phase targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons research facilities, and naval forces. About one-third of the Coalition's air power was devoted to attacking Scuds, some of which were on trucks and therefore difficult to locate. U.S. and British special operations forces had been covertly inserted into western Iraq to aid in the search and destruction of Scuds.

then the 100 hour ground campaign

 

Shortly afterwards, the U.S. VII Corps, in full strength and spearheaded by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, launched an armored attack into Iraq early on 24 February, just to the west of Kuwait, taking Iraqi forces by surprise. Simultaneously, the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps launched a sweeping left-hook attack across southern Iraq's largely undefended desert, led by the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). This movement's left flank was protected by France's 6th Light Armoured Division Daguet.

The movement's right flank was protected by the United Kingdom's 1st Armoured Division. Once the allies had penetrated deep into Iraqi territory, they turned eastward, launching a flank attack against the elite Republican Guard before it could escape.

 

The Iraqis suffered massive losses and lost dozens of tanks and vehicles, while U.S. casualties were comparatively low, with a single Bradley knocked out. Coalition forces pressed another ten kilometers into Iraqi territory, and captured their objective within three hours. They took 500 prisoners and inflicted heavy losses, defeating Iraq's 26th Infantry Division. Meanwhile, British forces attacked Iraq's Medina Division and a major Republican Guard logistics base. In nearly two days of some of the war's most intense fighting, the British destroyed 40 enemy tanks and captured a division commander.

 

The Coalition's advance was much swifter than U.S. generals had expected. On 26 February, Iraqi troops began retreating from Kuwait, .. A long convoy of retreating Iraqi troops formed along the main Iraq-Kuwait highway. Although they were retreating, this convoy was bombed so extensively by Coalition air forces that it came to be known as the Highway of Death. Hundreds of Iraqi troops were killed. American, British, and French forces continued to pursue retreating Iraqi forces over the border and back into Iraq, eventually moving to within 150 miles (240 km) of Baghdad before withdrawing back to Iraq's border with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

 

One hundred hours after the ground campaign started, on 28 February, President Bush declared a ceasefire, and he also declared that Kuwait had been liberated.

Smokin'

 

Now, imagine if instead of that excellent Gulf War battle plan, we had decided to invade Kuwait by air drop and then asked Saddam if it was OK to supply our air-dropped troops in Kuwait by supplying along Iraqi roads and we would pay him billions of dollars to let us?

 

How would the Gulf War have gone then? Saddam would have had us by the balls then like Pakistan has us by the balls now.

 

You can't defeat the troops of an imperial power by asking that imperial power for permission to do it. You have to defeat the imperial power. The front line troops, whether Saddam's forces in Kuwait or Pakistan's Taliban forces in Afghanistan are only the tip of the enemy war machine. You have to hit the enemy in the rear, hard.

 

And we've never given Pakistan the kind of air war that we gave Saddam in 1991. So Pakistan is laughing at our war campaign in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

 

 

Now do you understand how easy this war would be to win? We have to confront and defeat the imperial power, Pakistan, whose auxiliary, irregular or paramilitary forces the Taliban are.

 

Well if you still don't know how to win, no worries because I do, so just put me in charge of this war if you want it won.

Edited July 17, 2013 by Peter Dow