Carl Dassbach wrote: > > The problem in Afghanistan and Iraq is the perennial problem of conventional > armies fighting guerillas. As Mao pointed out "the guerrilla swims in the > sea of people." The US learned this many years ago in Vietnam as did the > Russians in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not a military threat, they are a > threat to the "prestige/preeminence" of the US and its allies. An inability > to defeat the Taliban would be a further "loss of face" for the US. This is > why they MUST be defeated. Even Obama recognizes this.
This is true enough -- but it is also important to remember that very few guerilla wars succeed. The strategy of drying up the sea seems to work pretty well in most cases. It worked in the Philippines in 1900-1910; it worked in the Philippines in the 1940s; It work in Malaya in the 1950s. It may have worked this time in Iraq, though there may well be another uprising there in the future. And Obama can probably get away with mass slaughter in Afghanistan/Pakistan than a Republican president could, so he may be able to kill and/or terrorize enough people there to dry up the sea the guerillas swim in. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
