With all respect to the general, what is he smoking? We have waste bins full of failed plans, and graveyards full of our dead.
The only workable "plan" is to level Afghanistan and leave it a smoking God forsaken ruin. Other than that, the only sensible choice is to get out of there completely. Leave Afghanistan and let Allah sort it out.
There is no upside to hanging around Afghanistan. What started out as a simple plan to get Bin Laden has turned into a futile nation building exercise. Hopeless.
Sort of a non sequitor but I came across this troubling tidbit on Wikipedia: "Before deploying to Iraq, Mattis had his Marines undergo cultural sensitivity training.". Who knows what that entailed.
Mattis talks a lot. He says a lot of tough things. He prosecuted Marines who fought their way out of a near ambush IED.
to blunt Taliban momentum. “
We don’t want them weakened. We want them dead. If that’s not possible, which I know it is, then we shouldn’t be there. Different goals again.
verb (used with object), blunted, blunting.
4.
to make blunt or dull:
He blunted the knife by using it to cut linoleum.
5.
to weaken or impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility of:
Wine first excites, then blunts the imagination