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[Blackhawk2001]

no, it can't be won because we're halfassing this and have halfassed it from day one. it seems to me that no one since patton has understood the concept of war. i want to go back in time and walk with the tyrant sherman on his march to the sea. he understood what war was. he salted the ground behind him as he went, let his troops rape women along the way, and general consumed and destroyed all that crossed his path. THAT man knew of war. we only know of halfassing combat. our troops could do SO much more to actually WIN this thing, and instead the military higherups and president HAMSTRING them so they can BARELY engage the enemy, and then we wonder why, after almost ten years of halfassing it, why we've covered so little distance toward victory.

The Russians spent 20 years trying it your way. It didn't work for them, for the British, or any of the other nations which invaded Afghanistan. FWIW, I wish we had stuck with the unconventional strategy we used in the beginning to drive the Taliban out of the country and had recognized we would have to do it again later on. However, the "hearts and minds" approach has the best odds of success in dealing with a proud and fractious people, and the Command has been mandated to win it, so that's what they're trying to do.

 

[Jeremiah]

Also from the perspective of using the hearts and minds, didn't the taliban/ al queada/ the muslim religion already win that fight?