Agrees with Smitra on Afghanistan. But also basically his unwritten observation that if the US really wants to win wars, you do it WW2 style, draft millions, and then don't hold back. But I look unlike his observations that in 2001 we should have gone nutso with a punishment campaign. We cannot nation build unlike Smitra's suggestion, and we would have been taking causalities all the time we held ground in Afghanistan , because the Umah (Muslim community) doesn't mind being holy martyrs. I don't know about Brent's suggestion about propaganda? What can we offer the Faithful versus eternity in Paradise with Allah? The Jihadis do understand massive pain, for a while, and then take their kufr enemies, seriously. No pain, no gain, even against the Jihadis.
-----Original Message----- From: smitra <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, Aug 20, 2021 1:04 pm Subject: Re: Afghanistan papers On 19-08-2021 21:21, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: > On 8/19/2021 2:47 AM, John Clark wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 8:11 PM <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> _> I would have considered using thermobaric weapons to blast them >>> out of the mountains,_ >> >> I asked for your solution to win the war in Afghanistan and turn the >> country into a stable peaceful democracy, and this is what I get. > > I think I do know how to do that; at least it's what I would try if I > were President. I'd have flooded the country with television sets and > broadcasts via satellites with plenty of Islamic content but leaning > to the Sufi, plus real world news and science and Hollywood > entertainment. I actually think Western culture, science, literature, > philosophy, art is superior in the sense that given exposure and a > choice, people will choose it. Sure, it would take a generation, > maybe two, but it would be relatively peaceful and in the end > Afghanistan might become an ally. It's also what I would try with > Iran. > > Brent For people to be to choose anything freely would have required making sure intimidation by the Taliban would be stopped. That would have required sending in enough soldiers so that the international force would have a presence in every inhabited part of the country. In 2002 the Afghans wanted to have more soldiers on their soil so that they could get rid of intimidation by Taliban and other armed groups. The reason why the mission failed was that we didn't sent in enough soldiers. This allowed the Taliban to have a presence in villages with no presence of international forces or the national army. They would move out when soldiers were on their way to move in, making it clear to the local population that they would be killed if they dare to collaborate with the soldiers. They would then move into other unoccupied villages, kill people who collaborated with the national army or international soldiers, set up their bomb factories etc. The Taliban did have hideouts in the mountains but they could not live their indefinitely, they would have run out of supplies eventually. So, access to villages was crucial and the small number of soldiers of no more than a few hundred thousand made it possible for the Taliban to succeed. It would have required a few million soldiers to completely pacify Afghanistan, which would be been easy to do for the World community. Hardly any military actions would be needed, because the insurgents would be denied access to villages for supplies. bomb factories etc. as everything would be occupied. Then the Afghans would be able to pursue the efforts needed needed to build up a democratic society. The reason we could not do this, was because we were biased against sending in a very large occupation force, based on a totally flawed understanding of history (e.g. that the Soviets and British failed there) Also we started the Iraq war which would have made it much more difficult to do something large w.r.t. Afghanistan. The Soviets failed in Afghanistan, but because of their large number of soldiers, but because they were forcing a ideology on the Afghans that the Afghans did not support. Large number of forces does, in general, help to suppress an insurgency. For example, the Soviets successfully suppressed the uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia by sending in large numbers of forces. The Chinese have successfully repressed the population in Tibet and now also in Xingjian using a large number of force. So, even if you do attempt to push an ideology down the throats of people against their will, that can actually succeed. So, if we don't impose anything on the population, if the population by and large supports a large and strong international presence, then a mission involving a large force is pretty much guaranteed to succeed in at least the limited goal of stabilization and pacifying the country. Then with the country completely pacified, the population could set up their institutions and build up an inclusive democratic system. Saibal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/7f4570c540123d1fe6aed8d62d206906%40zonnet.nl. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/10856154.570414.1629491285512%40mail.yahoo.com.
