If the military wanted Al Qaida gone, they'd have done it already.

Hey, if we're at the point where we're willing to nuke a country, I doubt we'd care.

Except that point being so far away is due to all of those people caring, which we care about.

It'd take extreme insanity to reach the point where the US did not care.

That would be the point where the USA has become officially The Empire.

John Boyd once said that the "Moral" element (the destruction of the enemy's will to win, via alienation from allies (or potential allies) and internal fragmentation) of war is the most important, with the "Physical" element (the destruction of the enemy's physical resources such as weapons, people, and logistical assets) being least important.

Well, for any other nation that gets attacked in the near future... Just assasinate the terrorist leader, bomb a few of their guys and be done with it. Action-Reprisal-Get It Over With. War over it is a massive waste of time and money.

edited 24th Jun '11 11:40:15 AM by SavageHeathen

We did that with Afghan.; then the conventional forces fucked it up.

Replace conventional forces with politicians.

That's a different can of worms.

You mean, give everyone in Congress an AR 15, then send'em to fight the Taliban themselves, instead of the troops?

What a great idea! They'd think twice before getting in unwinnable messes if they had to deal with'em themselves!

Problem is, we'd lose. Like, in a heartbeat. Like, to the Taliban. It would invigorate and raise morale for every Islamist thug ever, so it'd be more trouble than it'd be worth.

Replacing conventional forces with politicians wouldn't really work.

edited 24th Jun '11 12:03:46 PM by SavageHeathen

You underestimate how much value it'd be worth getting rid of a substantial fraction of politicians.

Well a few of them are pilots, at least they'd have CAS....wait; they want to get rid of the Hog.

How many of them remain qualified to fly?

Ooh, good point. Guess they'll have to hire some mercenaries...wait; they're not liked by the western world.

edited 24th Jun '11 12:09:47 PM by Kino

@blueharp: There are ways to get rid of them that don't involve them jihadis winning. Jihadis are the last thing in the world you would want to encourage.

You assume they'd be winning, we'd be laughing and smirking at their claims of victory while celebrating what we'd gained.

It's a classic Briar Patch gambit.

Problem is, it'd be a win/win.

When it comes to us/taliban, the only acceptable scenario is a win/lose, or a draw. The fundies are a pain in the butt already, if they think they've won, they're bound to get worse.

He is a moron. In war, when your side's casualties start rising owing to a particular strategy, you're doing it wrong. In 2007 through early 2009 we had a restrictive approach to close air support kinda like he's advocating. All it resulted in was a crapload of GI's and Marines without air cover when they're under fire by mortars, RPG's and machine guns every which way. That strategy cost a not insignificant number of soldiers and Marines their lives.

Worse, it didn't do anything positive for the "hearts and minds" approach. It started convincing some Afghans that we weren't going to do to Afghanistan what we did in Iraq. (Which was get serious, get to cracking heads and decide the conflict once and for all with or without the help of locals which the Anbar Awakening in Iraq certainly helped.) They saw us get serious over Iraq but they didn't see us get serious over their theatre of war. The restricted air support strategy was completely in line with that logic in their eyes.

Just cuz the guys a friggen Light Colonel doesn't make him infallible.

edited 24th Jun '11 5:14:51 PM by MajorTom

The fact is that guerrilla war requires lots of ground forces. War-winning systems like high-performance aircraft and precision-guided weapons may have local/tactical value, but do little ultimately to defeat guerrillas who know the theater intimately. Finally, the conventional force also needs to be psychologically fit, stubborn, patient, and motivated for the long-term fight.

It's also interesting to note that the Soviets collectively relied far too much on technology and airpower when they had their adventure in Afghanistan.

Also, former Mujahideen planner Ali Ahmad Jalali played a role in formulating some of his conclusions through the book "The Other Side of the Mountain".

edited 24th Jun '11 9:54:13 PM by Breakerchase

Tom, you have a very straaange sense of foreign opinions. I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, as for Al Qaeda, here's the problem. When over three hundred Canadians died in a terrorist bombing in the greatest single act of mass murder, what did Canada do? Absolutely nothing. Because they weren't white.

Nine Canadians died in 9/11 and we've since had a rotating deployment of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan.

That's why I call total and utter bullshit on this war and anything else to do with the war on terror and any legislation about it. It's not that I want them to screw the pony again like they did with the terrorist bombing I mentioned, but that it isn't necessary to go to war or put in extra legislative power to "prevent future attacks" nor does it "embolden the enemy". We never suffered another attack again from that terrorist group despite having done absolutely nothing.

Yep, that's one of the reasons why Harper just has to get out of office now.

Kino, regular nukes won't cut it, I think we need something with salt.

Use of a "salted" nuclear warhead would raise the piss-off level to 5.5 billion.

Nobody even builds them because they know how bad an idea it would be.

The 1985 Air India bombing I believe.

And it shows, you have no idea what you are talking about or what sort of progress has been made in the first place.

Al Qaeda is pretty much gone in Afghanistan. They no longer have fighters, instead they use agents who stir the people up with religious fervor to motivate them to join the various insurgency movements within the country that fight us. They also pay people to do things like fire RPG's at convoys and wear suicide vests. We have a strong enemy in Afghanistan, but it's the Taliban, the local warlords, and various insurgent militias. The reason we don't just go in and annihilate them is because we have to have proof that they are valid targets before we engage them.

You're making some pretty broad assumptions about something that you don't even have the most basic laymans understanding of, do some research.

Because, you know, both of the times I went to Afghanistan I didn't give a shit. I was just there for the timeshare opportunities and the women wearing revealing clothing walking around everywhere. I never had any desire to shoot as many religious extremists in the face as possible. Nope. Never.

edited 24th Jun '11 6:38:35 PM by Barkey