Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
Doubt it will go over so well with the teenage fundamentalists on the jihad websites. "Die like a martyr or dress like a girl: you decide", is probably not their most effective recruiting slogan.
The point is that the Afghans couldn't care less. Teenage Jihadis can flock to the cause and get killed in carload lots, they are broadly irrelevant to Afghanistan and what happens there -- what the Afghans believe OTOH is important. That tag line won't sway them.
We shouldn't be.
I'm with you. Does Congress know that? Does Joe Sixpack know -- or care? Nope, we shouldn't rush it -- but I bet we do...
What I'm skeptical about is whether we'll actually hold this village, or any of the other villages we are clearing right now. The tactic only makes sense with a population centric strategy and an operational commitment to holding cleared areas, or whatever the right buzzwords are.
Not necessarily. If one has swallowed the Kool Aid and believes the rather foolish rhetoric that population centric stuff matters, then one could hope for that. Big fly in that pie is that we do not have enough troops, NATO, US, Afghan (Police and Army) to do that. It would take five to ten times the now available strength to do it that way and neither we, NATO or the Afghans (or anyone else) are likely to come up with gold or the people. Plus we Americans just do not do that stuff well -- impatience again, plus the tour syndrome and the domestic political turmoil every two years. Not our bag.

So we go to Plan B. Clear, then dazzle with footwork and get the crowd behind the Goal to wave their pom poms or whatever while building roads and schools and giving the max number of troublemakers an opportunity to repent and be productive Pomegranate growers. We can get there. Just makes it more difficult and more likely to provide a temporary 'OK' solution rather than a long term good one. Tough world out there, people don't play fair...

We're not going to change 3,000 years of Afghan history and culture. Never were going to be able to do that. Stuff like that happens when the strategy crowd gets target fixation. We screw up. Then the troops have to go try to pull fat out of fires. Fortunately, they usually do a half fast job and it works out okay in the end. Well, sort of okay...