Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Bush STILL can't get basic strategy and tactics down right 5
President Bush gave a talk to the AEI on the subject of the War in Afghanistan recently- and showed that he still doesn't understand basic deny travel to terrorists or secure perimeter attack tactics. From the speech I linked to above:
The snow is going to melt in the Hindu Kush Mountains, and when it does we can expect fierce fighting to continue. The Taliban and al Qaeda are preparing to launch new attacks. Our strategy is not to be on the defense, but to go on the offense. This spring there is going to be a new offensive in Afghanistan, and it's going to be a NATO offensive. And that's part of our strategy -- relentless in our pressure. We will not give in to murderers and extremists.
This is fine, this is right- release the bombers *before* the snows melt, and destroy the road links across Tora Bora and the Hindu Kush mountains, right? Seems reasonable to me. But it's apparently *NOT* the offensive tactic Bush was thinking of, for further down in his speech:
Another key element to bringing stability to Afghanistan is building roads. Lieutenant General Eikenberry, who served with distinction in Afghanistan, just finished his tour, he was the senior commander there, said really something very interesting that caught my attention. He said, "Where the roads end in Afghanistan, the Taliban begin." So in order to help the security of this country, the international community has stepped up its road-building campaign across Afghanistan. So far, the United States and other nations have completed construction of more than 4,000 miles of roads -- that sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. We're also talking about a big country.
Much of the ring road -- we call it the ring road -- that links key provincial capitals to Kabul, is pretty well complete. And that's important, because, first of all, road building brings jobs to young men who might be recruited to the Taliban. But roads enable people to get commerce to centers of trade. In other words, roads promote enterprise. Enterprise provides hope. Hope is what defeats this ideology of darkness. And so we're going to build another 1,000 roads [sic] in 2007. It's an important effort, and our allies need to follow through on their commitments to help this young democracy have a road system that will enable it to flourish and survive.
NO- that's the WRONG ANSWER. The RIGHT answer is if you know where the Taliban areas begin, surround those areas and work your way in- THEN build roads. Most certainly do NOT build additional roads from Pakistan, instead we need to mine that border then work our way in from the minefields, with Pakistani soldiers coming up from the south, to eliminate the extremeists.
President Bush doesn't understand what is completely clear to me- we are fighting a genocidal enemy. It will take a genocide to eliminate that enemy. If we had treated them like a genocidal enemy in September and October 2001, there would be nobody left alive to fight now, nobody to kill our troops, nobody to try to assassinate Pakistani and Afghani officials. They would ALL be dead by now- no place to hide. Giving such people freedom is only giving them leave to kill our people, nothing more or less.
The snow is going to melt in the Hindu Kush Mountains, and when it does we can expect fierce fighting to continue. The Taliban and al Qaeda are preparing to launch new attacks. Our strategy is not to be on the defense, but to go on the offense. This spring there is going to be a new offensive in Afghanistan, and it's going to be a NATO offensive. And that's part of our strategy -- relentless in our pressure. We will not give in to murderers and extremists.
This is fine, this is right- release the bombers *before* the snows melt, and destroy the road links across Tora Bora and the Hindu Kush mountains, right? Seems reasonable to me. But it's apparently *NOT* the offensive tactic Bush was thinking of, for further down in his speech:
Another key element to bringing stability to Afghanistan is building roads. Lieutenant General Eikenberry, who served with distinction in Afghanistan, just finished his tour, he was the senior commander there, said really something very interesting that caught my attention. He said, "Where the roads end in Afghanistan, the Taliban begin." So in order to help the security of this country, the international community has stepped up its road-building campaign across Afghanistan. So far, the United States and other nations have completed construction of more than 4,000 miles of roads -- that sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. We're also talking about a big country.
Much of the ring road -- we call it the ring road -- that links key provincial capitals to Kabul, is pretty well complete. And that's important, because, first of all, road building brings jobs to young men who might be recruited to the Taliban. But roads enable people to get commerce to centers of trade. In other words, roads promote enterprise. Enterprise provides hope. Hope is what defeats this ideology of darkness. And so we're going to build another 1,000 roads [sic] in 2007. It's an important effort, and our allies need to follow through on their commitments to help this young democracy have a road system that will enable it to flourish and survive.
NO- that's the WRONG ANSWER. The RIGHT answer is if you know where the Taliban areas begin, surround those areas and work your way in- THEN build roads. Most certainly do NOT build additional roads from Pakistan, instead we need to mine that border then work our way in from the minefields, with Pakistani soldiers coming up from the south, to eliminate the extremeists.
President Bush doesn't understand what is completely clear to me- we are fighting a genocidal enemy. It will take a genocide to eliminate that enemy. If we had treated them like a genocidal enemy in September and October 2001, there would be nobody left alive to fight now, nobody to kill our troops, nobody to try to assassinate Pakistani and Afghani officials. They would ALL be dead by now- no place to hide. Giving such people freedom is only giving them leave to kill our people, nothing more or less.
just maybe... (Score:1)
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Or maybe in Islamic extremist terms. That is the question. We (the U.S.) have been, and continue to be with this theory of the general's, operating under the assumption that freedom and prosperity will work on Muslim "moderates", leaving us only having to deal harshly with the minority of that group, the violent extremists. While it's not looking like the no-brainer that it initially seemed, I don't think the assumption has been proven wrong just yet.
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Neither has it been proven right- in fact, I can find n
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