Posted on 10/12/2009 9:44:51 AM PDT by Crush
Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get any worse (from The Times)...
The Obama administration is considering outbidding the Taliban to persuade Afghan villagers to lay down arms as it struggles to find a new approach to a war that is fast losing public and congressional support.Didn't we send troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban? Now the Obama administration is wanting to legitimize yet another terrorist group:
Apart from training more Afghan troops, the focus has shifted to accepting a political role for the Taliban, while also trying to weaken them by winning some over.Once again, it is impossible to win over people who have a religious duty to eliminate our civilization through jihad. There is no middle ground, and they will only use our money against us. The even bigger problem I believe is that the Obama administration has to know this.
Here's what passes for war strategy when community organizers and revolutionaries run the government:
Paying Taliban foot-soldiers to switch sides could spare US lives and save money, say its advocates. A recent report by the Senate foreign relations committee estimated the Taliban fighting strength at 15,000, of whom only 5% are committed idealogues while 70% fight for money the so-called $10-a-day Taliban. Doubling this to win them over would cost just $300,000 a day, compared with the $165m a day the United States is spending fighting the war.These "advocates" are so far off base this isn't even worth analyzing. But I had been under the impression we sent troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda-associated movements - not to save money! I wonder why we didn't just pay off the Wermacht in 1944 rather than invade Normandy.
At least someone has a clue:
Some experts disagree. Gilles Dorronsoro from the Carnegie Institute insisted: You cannot break an insurgency that strong with money. Its not a mercenary force its a very powerful movement.The thing is that the Afghans know that the U.S. is about to cut and run just like every other civilization that has occupied Afghanistan throughout human history. The ones who take the money will be left high and dry when Obama decides enough is enough, but the Taliban are there to stay, and will remember who wasn't willing to continue the jihad. All this would be is another collosal waste of taxpayer money, which the Taliban will end up appropriating anyways.
This is obviously a UK story because they actually found more than one person who isn't in lockstep with the administration. Obama is getting caught up in his own words:
Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the president has only himself to blame. It was Obama who insisted in March and again last month that this was a war of necessity and must be fully resourced rather than looking at what we really have at stake in Afghanistan.
“Millions for tribute, but not one penny for defense!”
It is true that many within the UK defense establishment knew they were unprepared for war Hitler was even more so. UK had a defense industry that could have been sprung into motion and the Nazis didn’t have masses of men as they were coming off of the Versailles imposed limitations on their forces. If ww2 had started then it still would have been awful but it would have been won by the UK and France alone.
Of course then there would have been a non nuclear ww3 with the soviet union...
Pres_ _ent So-Vain Hussein Obama: "Go Taliban. Go Taliban. Go Taliban.
MY new presidential helicopter will let ME cook a meal while under nuclear attack."
They all belong to the culture of death that is incompatible to our way of life. The approach I approve of to "win hearts and minds" has yet to be tried which is the only method they respect...
Why doesn’t the arasewipre pay some of my and others bills before sending money to enemies...besides I could use it better as sure most all Americans could.
Has anyone thought to ask the Afghan Army who only pays about $150/month per soldier?
Trying to talk logic about this issue clearly isn’t going to work
This was part of Patreaus’ surge strategy. Pay off the Sunnis in Iraq and put them on our pay roll.
Much easier then having our soldiers be sitting ducks with the current ROE
Well...then we agree. An essential part of Petreaus’s strategy was to put insurgents, who had American blood on their hands, on the U.S. payroll. Obama is doing the same. The ROE is a separate issue.
yes we do agree.
I also think this strategy is a MUST in Afghanistan where you are dealing with the most ignorant population on Earth
You feed them or give them the means to feed themselves (via bribes) they won’t hurt you.
You mess with them, they’ll get back at you as hard as possible. It is truly a “culture of honor” meaning that any slight against them is a slight against their “honor” and they must get revenge. Its typical of any type of people that live in mountains around the world.
Bribe them. Get them to lay down their arms against us. It’ll cost far less American blood
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