30,000 new targets to be placed in Afghanistan

[Cain]

The Boy Prince really hasn't a clue, does he?

[Kai]

What a shit head.

[LMNO]

I'm pretty sure he had a Johnson moment.

He looked at the options available, put his head in his hands, and muttered, "What the fuck am I going to do?"

So he decided to punt.  Not enough for a massive fuck-all boot stomping, but more than the piddling chum-in-a-hummer he's got now.  I guess he's gonna rely on the massive power of "HOPE"; as in, "I hope something good happens in the next 3 years."

[AFK]

Yeah, I have to say I don't envy the man one bit.  Who the fuck want to make that decision?  He certainly didn't look very happy about the decision he had to make.  I mean, if things go badly, he'll probably be kissing 2012 goodbye.  He'll lose a bunch of seats in Congress.  I'm not terribly on board with the decision, but it certainly wasn't a politically expedient one.  But really, the guy was pretty much fucked when he got into office.  Bush left such a clusterfuck, he probably had very few ways to win on anything. 

Also, he did leave an awfully big loop-hole into the so-called timetable.  I'll call it now, we won't be withdrawing in the middle of 2011.  Yeah I know not much of a stretch to make that call. 

[Requia ☣]

The Boy Prince really hasn't a clue, does he?

What exactly would you recommend he do?

[Cain]

First, "more!" is not a strategy, so by definition, anything I propose is automatically better.

Second, I wouldn't use a cut-and-paste plan that "worked" in a mostly urban environment and expect it to work in a country full of goats, mountains, caves and more goats.

Third, I'd fire anyone who mentions any of the following:
- creating a tribal militia
- bribing the Taliban
- concentrating on southern Afghanistan because "that is where the fighting is".
- metrics for leaving which are actually Agitprop for the rubes at home (ie; "democracy", "degrading the ability of Al-Qaeda to fight" etc)
- any buzzword from either the ISAF press releases or Centcom's power slides, because the sort of person who does that is an ass-covering know-nothing
- arbitrary troop numbers which will, by themselves and with no change in strategy, solve everything.  Or anything, even.

I'd also fire Petraeus, and tell him he can play at being President once, oh, I don't know, he's won an election, maybe?

Then I'd hire the best experts on Afghan culture, history and sociology, along with Central Asian experts with security backgrounds, and ask them what they think, instead of running to my pet foreign policy advisors like the Kagans to see what should be done.

And then I'd ignore all their advice and dump the problem on the laps of Iran, Russia, India and China, and tell them to enjoy the spillover effects, as a fuck you for all the "help" they have provided in the country.

No Western European power can hold Afghanistan.  Ever.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.  The only powers who can dominate the country are Central Asian ones, who, coincidentally, are the ones who have sat on their hands and done nothing for the past eight years.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

First, "more!" is not a strategy, so by definition, anything I propose is automatically better.

Second, I wouldn't use a cut-and-paste plan that "worked" in a mostly urban environment and expect it to work in a country full of goats, mountains, caves and more goats.

Third, I'd fire anyone who mentions any of the following:
- creating a tribal militia
- bribing the Taliban
- concentrating on southern Afghanistan because "that is where the fighting is".
- metrics for leaving which are actually Agitprop for the rubes at home (ie; "democracy", "degrading the ability of Al-Qaeda to fight" etc)
- any buzzword from either the ISAF press releases or Centcom's power slides, because the sort of person who does that is an ass-covering know-nothing
- arbitrary troop numbers which will, by themselves and with no change in strategy, solve everything.  Or anything, even.

I'd also fire Petraeus, and tell him he can play at being President once, oh, I don't know, he's won an election, maybe?

Then I'd hire the best experts on Afghan culture, history and sociology, along with Central Asian experts with security backgrounds, and ask them what they think, instead of running to my pet foreign policy advisors like the Kagans to see what should be done.

And then I'd ignore all their advice and dump the problem on the laps of Iran, Russia, India and China, and tell them to enjoy the spillover effects, as a fuck you for all the "help" they have provided in the country.

No Western European power can hold Afghanistan.  Ever.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.  The only powers who can dominate the country are Central Asian ones, who, coincidentally, are the ones who have sat on their hands and done nothing for the past eight years.

Cain, it's exactly this sort of clear-headed reasoning that will keep you out of your chosen field forever.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm pretty sure he had a Johnson moment.

He looked at the options available, put his head in his hands, and muttered, "What the fuck am I going to do?"

So he decided to punt. 

THIS.

[Cain]

Academia beckons, then!

Fortunately there, no-one gives a rats ass about my nationality or habit of mocking the entire national-security establishment.

Unfortunately, they're also know-nothing dickheads, but at least they don't have a say over policy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Academia beckons, then!

Fortunately there, no-one gives a rats ass about my nationality or habit of mocking the entire national-security establishment.

Unfortunately, they're also know-nothing dickheads, but at least they don't have a say over policy.

You should try getting hired on at one of these "think tanks", and become the dirty little whore you know you can be.  Sure, you might not be able to look in the mirror when you shave every morning, but there's plenty of boodle to be had pumping sunshine up peoples' arses.

[Cain]

I actually did an internship here. They only paid for the coffee, and I had to cut my time short due to being quite ill, but it was alright.

If you really wanted to be serious about Afghanistan, you'd need 2.1 million troops and a decade, minimum.  It costs the US roughly $1 million to field a soldier for a year in Afghanistan.  You'd also need to train the troops to speak the local languages and to learn the basics of counterinsurgency practice.

And even then you'd have no guarantee of success, plus you'd be massively restricting your ability to deploy in other regions of the world for a decade to come.  Even without taking into account the recession etc it's a losing proposition.

Oh, and then, Al-Qaeda would just move to Yemen or somewhere anyway.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I actually did an internship here. They only paid for the coffee, and I had to cut my time short due to being quite ill, but it was alright.

If you really wanted to be serious about Afghanistan, you'd need 2.1 million troops and a decade, minimum.  It costs the US roughly $1 million to field a soldier for a year in Afghanistan.  You'd also need to train the troops to speak the local languages and to learn the basics of counterinsurgency practice.

And even then you'd have no guarantee of success, plus you'd be massively restricting your ability to deploy in other regions of the world for a decade to come.  Even without taking into account the recession etc it's a losing proposition.

Oh, and then, Al-Qaeda would just move to Yemen or somewhere anyway.

We don't have 2.1 million combat troops, and we don't have $210 trillion dollars over the next 10 years.

But what we DO have is a plethora of pundits screeching shit about "nuking them all".

[Cain]

At least everyone knows they are retards though.  Well, everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together.  It's supposed geostrategic geniuses like Fred Kagan who bother me more.  Obviously reading too much of Brezinski's The New Chessboard has added their brains and they really think a distant, foreign, amphibious power like the United States can project power into Central Asia, in the face of an insurgency, for all eternity.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

At least everyone knows they are retards though.  Well, everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together. 

Okay, but what about the OTHER 300,999,000 Americans?

[Requia ☣]

And then I'd ignore all their advice and dump the problem on the laps of Iran, Russia, India and China, and tell them to enjoy the spillover effects, as a fuck you for all the "help" they have provided in the country.

So basically, we've fucked up beyond belief and the only thing left to do is admit it?