Dr Jack -

I really like the point you made about the Center of Gravity being their ideology. That is absolutely (IMHO) right on the money and having spent a lot of months in Afghanistan over the past four years I can say that it is a shared trait among all the disparate players within that country. I will add that part and parcel to that ideology is a great distrust and dislike of the western ideology.

The challenge becomes how do you kill your enemy with all the technology and destruction we bring to the fight while at the same time 'winning the hearts and minds' of the populace. It is a daunting task to kill a mid-level Taliban leader responsible for IED's that have killed coalition soldiers without using a bomb to do it. Our strategy of fighting from FOBs, Fire Bases, etc... have been a limiting factor to how much success we can make out there on the battlefield. I have witnessed large scale US/UK/ANA operations used to sweep the Tagab Valley and route the Taliban only to have no one hold that ground once we left. A year later these same villages were infested with Taliban again, so now try to convince that villager who is trying to stay out of the fight that he needs to support you again is daunting to say the least. He has done that song and dance and will not do it again...now he has thrown his hat in with the Taliban. It isn't rocket science it's simply survival out there for most of these Afghans and since we cannot hold ground and provide the hearts and minds types of services needed plus (most importantly) maintain the security gained from pushing the Taliban out this will continue to be the process...

PT
SENDS