Posted on 09/17/2009 4:15:12 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
A middle path of muddling through is the real recipe for quagmire and loss of public support.
BY LINDSEY GRAHAM, JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, & JOHN MCCAIN
Growing numbers of Americans are starting to doubt whether we should have troops in Afghanistan and whether the war there is even winnable.
We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan.
We went to war there because the 9/11 attacks were a direct consequence of the safe haven given to al Qaeda in that country under the Taliban. We remain at war because a resurgent Taliban, still allied with al Qaeda, is trying to restore its brutal regime and re-establish that country as a terrorist safe haven.
It remains a clear, vital national interest of the United States to prevent this from happening. Yet an increasing number of commentators, including some of the very same individuals who opposed the surge in Iraq and called for withdrawal there, now declare Afghanistan essentially unwinnable. Had their view prevailed with respect to Iraq in 2006 and 2007, the consequences of our failure there would have been catastrophic.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Leave the ROEs to the commanders in the field and use overwhelming force or get out.
I think containment and a slow push from a central government that we can make stronger over time.....
Oh yeah...that was Bush's policy.......I forgot...:-(
I'm startin to see 1968 all over again. These people are idiots.
I don’t know anything about military tactics but that seems obvious to me.
How about a device that makes a certain piece or land heat up to one million degress for a split second?
FLASH....BOOM....See ya later Ackmed!!!
Just sayin
Destroy the Poppy crops. Kill any taliban who dares to raise their heads. Cut out the roving patrols where our guys may as well have targets painted on their backs. Resolve to be around forever. Forget about winning the minds and hearts. They hate us. It may cost the same as Korea but it is worth it. Let the jihadists have their playground and we will keep “bringing them to justice” as George W. used to say.
These dirtballs are easy pickins if we give them the task of eliminating them
I miss the Linebacker I & II campaigns. I miss Napalm as well.
These people will turn on you as soon as you leave them alone. The Taliban they know and they understand that when we leave they will return.
This is not Iraq.
Not a bad idea and the first place to start would be Iran, then Syria, then Libya, then Somalia and so on.
That says it all except that war is hell and will include civilian casualties. No war (especially a modern war) has ever been fought or won without them. Present ROE are costing our brave troops' lives.
We need to stop being in the role of liberators and start becoming conquerers. The only thing that they understand is overwhelming punishment.
Back in college we actually had an interesting conversation regarding this. My instructor said that the reason Linebacker worked so well was not because the North Vietnamese were any more shocked than by the years of Rolling Thunder but rather because by that point the US wanted out of Vietnam so the terms they offered the North during Linebacker were much more appealing. Thought that it was an interesting point. The instructor felt the US lost Vietnam because the country was not willing to commit to a war of varying intensity (as seen by the US having several years of relative quiet after Tet destroyed the main force communists and sent them back to their sanctuaries) and prolonged time.
Our public has a attention span of three years, four max. Most only a year.
BTW, we did not lose in Nam. Not one battle.
We left.
We left.>>
Yep, not one battle.
“We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan.”
All three are idiots...
We cannot prevail in Afghanistan, so long as the CIC, as he has stated, is against “victory”.
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