[SevenMinusOne]

Reality is Stan has seen basically several decades worth of progress in less than 8 years......It is no where near the dire straights that has been spun (for both political and $$$ reasons).

Reality is to move Stan out of the dark ages was always going to take about 10-12 years (best estimates from the start). Answers now (and have been) to allow our trigger pullers / shooters to hunt more openly in specific AOR.....while FID operations follow up and throughout the rest of Stan.

Our turning of shooters loose in Iraq back in 05/06 along with FID OPs in Anbar (when Iraq supposedly looked its bleakest) is what actually allowed "the surge" in Iraq to be so successful. The surge helped fill the vacuum left over because of our non-stop DA Ops....and where the surge didn't fill in.....our FID operations did / already were doing so.

Keeping it simple.

1. More HUMINT

2. More DA Ops in the border regions

3. FID OPs

[SevenMinusOne]

Along with understanding. Just as in Iraq (though in differing ways and degrees) the vast majority of the people of Stan our not our enemies....They are part of the long term solution.