Posted on 03/28/2009 11:08:33 PM PDT by neverdem
DIRT doesn't matter. You don't defeat a trans-national terrorist organization by occupying medieval villages.
Yesterday, President Obama presented his "comprehensive new strategy" for Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was neither new, nor a strategy. Behind all the rhetoric, he just said, I'm sending more troops and more money.
Barack Obama? I heard Lyndon Johnson. The only LBJ touch that BHO lacked was the word "escalation."
The rhetoric was masterly. The content was drivel. He said, "The situation is increasingly perilous." Which situation? Why? For whom? Certainly, it's becoming more perilous for our troops as we escalate in support of the wrong policy.
Obama rightly identified the main threat to us as al Qaeda, which he wants to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat." Then why are his efforts overwhelmingly directed toward the Taliban?
I don't like the Talibs, but they didn't attack us on 9/11. Dirt poor, they just made the mistake of renting some fleabag motel rooms to al Qaeda. And they paid heavily for it.
The Taliban strategy is to make Afghanistan ungovernable for us. What if, instead of trying to claim worthless territory in the name of a corruption-poisoned Afghan government, we flipped the rules and just kept Afghanistan ungovernable for the Taliban?
We'd need far fewer troops. And the investment's return would be higher.
Or how about Obama's ringing claim that the Taliban have "nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and oppression?" Many Afghans -- at least among the Pashtun plurality -- don't agree.
The tribals deep in those valleys and the Pashtuns in Pakistan feel a lot closer to the Taliban's values than to ours. They might not mind a new road, but they'll skip the bikinis and Budweiser...
--snip--
Ho . . . ho . . . BHO. . . Why don't your supporters go?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I respect Ralph Peters a lot and buy his books but he wasn't always correct about Iraq. So a grain or two of salt applies. But in this at least he's correct - Bambi hasn't given us a strategic vision, a cogent military objective, or any idea of what victory is supposed to look like. This wasn't Bush's strong point either, but he was a whole lot better at it than the feckless Obama, at least so far, and that's an awfully low bar. IMHO.
In the interest of accuracy, the Taliban DID in fact appoint Osama bin Laden the Commander-in-Chief of their armed forces in August of 2001, there was a Russian protest of that appointment, and it was picked up by UPI.
Can you link that?
I haven't bought any of his books, but I usually find his OpEd columns interesting in describing the problem at hand, i.e. analysis. He's a very sharp analyst, IMHO. IIRC, his branch in the Army was military intelligence.
Thanks for the URLs.
No prob.
how about Obama's ringing claim that the Taliban have "nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and oppression?" Many Afghans -- at least among the Pashtun plurality -- don't agree. The tribals deep in those valleys and the Pashtuns in Pakistan feel a lot closer to the Taliban's values than to ours. They might not mind a new road, but they'll skip the bikinis and Budweiser...Okay, so, we've seen one of the Afghan bikini success stories...
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