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[That’s the thing I never understand, why not withdraw and then terrorize THEM forever. Do whatever weapons tests flyover bombings we want.

Tell Afghanistan if they don’t like it CHANGE.]

If such measures were legal (i.e. the President wouldn’t be subjected to impeachment, trial and imprisonment or worse), they would already have been used to exterminate the Taliban and win the war in a couple of years or less. The Mongols dominated their conquered territories by using precisely these methods - they killed rebels and all civilians associated with them. More recently, the Chinese are said to have quelled resistance to their invasion of Vietnam in 1979 by resorting to this time-tested method, which is pretty much a repeat of what victorious conquerors have been doing everywhere since at least records started being kept:

https://www.quora.com/If-guerrilla-warfare-is-so-hard-to-beat-why-didnt-more-countries-militaries-revert-to-guerilla-tactics-when-they-were-on-the-verge-of-defeat/answer/Yifeng-Huang-8

[Guerilla warfare can be easily defeated if the attackers are resolute.

Genghis Khan, probably the greatest conquerer ever, never had a problem with guerilla warfare, even though the lands he conquered included Afghanistan. Why? Because his army simply slaughter all civilians, including their babies, who dare to fight against them.

In the Vietnam war, the Americans struggled against the Vietcongs. When China fought Vietnam, China simply romped through North Vietnam (north of Hanoi), transport removable factories/infrastructure back to China while destroying those that they cannot bring back. One crack Vietnamese division that was rushed back from Cambodia wisely decided to settle into prepared defensive positions near Hanoi instead of reinforcing the surrounded troops north of Hanoi. Why didn’t China has problem with Vietcong guerilla fighters?

When I first visited China in the 1990s, a retired veteran bitterly told me that his Major was killed by a ~6 year old Vietnamese kid holding a secret pistol when he was giving out food to the kid. Apparently, this is not an isolated incident. Very soon, they enacted Genghis Khan’s strategy. North Vietnamese villagers encountered were simply labeled as “civilian militia”, treated as combatants and showed no mercy. PLA never encounter anymore guerilla problems because there were no civilians left to provide the guerilla with information, shelter and food!

In the 1980s, there is no internet and no international reporter who has access to report on this. Chinese body counts, which included “civilian militia combatants”, concluded that enemy casualties were in excess of 10 times PLA losses.]