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I honestly don't understand what you mean. Are you advocating that the American's in Afghanistan should try to destroy Afghan villages to break their power? Didn't the Russians already try that in Afghanistan and fail?

 

I agree - killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq do not help at all.  The reason why we have had so much success in Afghanistan was because we did not do the burn village routine that the Soviet military was so fond of.  Most of the locals don't like the Taliban.

The key to victory in Afghanistan is killing off the opium trade - something that a short series of C-17 or C-130 runs with spray nozzles can do.  The question is do we have the guts to do it?

The real trouble with the Opium crop is that it is the cash crop for the Afghans. Destroying it or worse, destroying some of it, would remove their only means of support. Remember that the farmers are growing this instead of food crops and using the money to buy food. Destroying their means of support would push them in with the Taliban.

History has shown that the Afghans are, by nature, contrary - they despise outside influence above all else, it seems. If one side is letting them get on with it in their own way and the other is dictating to them, then they will tend to support the hands-off side. Rampaging in and trying to enforce your rules on them will alienate them, especially if you don't support them properly as compensation.

Attacking the opium harvest is about the single most damaging thing that the Western forces could do. A really good solution would be to buy it for pharmaceutical use, and just buy less each year. It would be a hugely delicate balencing act - you don't want the farmers to become dependent on poppies - but if you got it right, the legitimate market would put most of the smugglers out of business through simple economics. By the time you are not buying opiates in large quantities, you want a decent internal and export market for food crops and some kind of infrastructure so that this is more attractive than the risks entailed with illegal smuggling. By cutting out the middle man, you also deprive the terrorists of some of their money.

The building of the infrastructure is really important, but it is more vital that it be done using Afghan companies and labour. Sending Haliburton or KBR in is an insult (the locals can't do the work) and much of the money leaves the country almost immediately in terms of overheads and consultancy fees. I'd rather see Afghan engineers and bureacrats getting things wrong and hence learning that get it done right (and the latter isn't guaranteed by using Western contracters.)

Excellent analysis Flaming Knives...  My sources tell me that most of the opium trade is sponsored or actively run by the Pakistani ISI for profit.

While its true that the more you have the more you can theoretically afford to lose, it's not that simple.  In democratic countries govts can only go as far as the people will allow.  This dependends on what is at stake, national survival is one thing spreading joy in foreign parts is different.  I'd suggest that the evidence is mounting fast that the US people have lost their stomach for Iraq, interestingly there doesn't seem to be a similar strength of feeling in UK, in part because they've had less casualties, although I'm not sure how casualty rates compare.

There's another interesting angle as well. Both US and UK use 'principles of war' derived from those developed by JFC Fuller after WW1.  The differences are relatively slight (once you get over some linguistic differences) with one exception - UK has 'maintenance of morale', usually listed up top with 'maintenance of the aim'.  This difference is noteworthy because morale is fundamental to cohesion and cohesion lies at the heart of the manouvrist approach to war, which is totally adopted by UK.

 

Returning to the original post, I'd suggest confusion between concepts of  'pressing home an attack' and 'aggression'.  The former it what really counts and is indicative of motivation to achieve the allotted mission.  The second can be a disadvantge because it subverts discipline, a vital attribute when firepower has to be applied judisciously (killing an extra bad guy at the expense of a bunch of civilians is criminal stupidity when the main game is getting and keeping the civilians on side).

 

Also interesting is that the AAC are real low level experts.  It used to be said  (during the Cold War) that the best AAC pilots were the ex inf and armour NCOs because they understood flying in the mud and using ground in a way that men trained only as pilots didn't.  They also had the benefit of having been on the ground with a rifle and operating and understanding using force appropriately.  I'd be very surprised if the AAC has lost its tactical smarts, this all means that it's likely that the AAC in Afg is using well thought out tactics that tie in properly with the action on the ground and achieving the allied goals in the campaign.

 

I'd suggest that Capt Staley is a young buck who lacks appropriate training and doesn't really understand what he has seen and heard.  Culture shock plus all mouth and trousers?

[img]The Brits are good but they don't have the extreme aggression that we do.
[/img]

 

Surely that's a good thing.  It means that, unlike the Americans, our airmen aren't trigger-happy rednecks who attack an allied nation's armoured vehicles and land Chinooks helicopters onto a friendly nation's vehicle, severely injuring the occupant inside.

[quote]The lionshare of casualties are US.  The largest number of choppers lost are US. [/quote]

 

Only because the US has vastly more soldiers and helicopters than Britain has, so the US is bound to lose more.

This is an absolutely great idea, unlike cocaine, Opium has extensive medical uses. Opiates account for like 30% of all pain killers and anesthesias. I honestly dont understand the demonization of there Opium crops, sure there being used to make heroin, there not allowed to sell it legitimetly.