They’ve been producing opium in Afghanistan for two and a half millennium. They managed to almost stop production in 1 of those years. They did this by beheading every grower they could find. That’s the only thing that has ever stopped it. That’s the solution the Taliban are credited with that the US has failed to follow.

Another ally for a more aggressive approach to the problem was David Kilcullen, a blunt counterterrorism expert. He became increasingly concerned about the drug money flowing to the Taliban. He noted that, while Afghans often shift alliances, what remains constant is their respect for strength and consistency. He recommended mobile courts that had the authority to execute drug kingpins in their own provinces. (You could have heard a pin drop when he first made that suggestion at a large meeting of diplomats.)

Could you translate?

They’re saying this discussion existing is idiotic and counterproductive as far as COIN doctrine goes. Ain’t about defeating the enemy, it’s about winning the population. Hence, actually taking pains to credit the US (not just in passing but apparently as a major platform in a campaign) for the part the surge played in the reduction in violence, where much of this credit is due to the SoI and other tribal and regional Iraqi efforts is counterproductive+.

I was going to say “grassroots movement” there but, you know, it’s the desert.

But but the surge was 30+K troops. What about the already existing 130+k troops?

Of course, McCain’s surge fantasy is just a sponge sucking up any reduction in violence, leaving nothing for pre-surge troops, or any Iraqi involvement or dis-involvement.

Prior to this last flub, if it is a flub, and not self-aggrandizement, I was unable to listen to McCain for too long. His poor use of verb tense required mental gymnastics. (My wife is Iranian and I she has similar problems with verb tense and subject ambiguity.)

The surge is succeeding, it has succeeded, we are winning the war, but it is fragile. (unspecified time travel into the future) and our troops are winning the war and will come home with honor. I know how to win wars. (If given the chance?)

With this type of verbal confusion, is it any wonder he made this last mistake? I just don’t know if he has the same ambiguous subject problem.

And that self interest was to oppose Wahhabism, more hated than the Americans.

Once the Sunnis of Anbar turned against Al Q the US military reached all its objectives and should have been brought home last year to those parades the wingtards love so much.

“Proper students of counterinsurgency understand instead that counterinsurgency is war among the people or what Kilcullen calls “armed social science work” (though the important COIN practitioner-turned-skeptic Gian Gentile disagrees) and seek to maximize the rational decisionmaking to decide siding with an insurgency is against its interests, through inducements that are (Kilcullen again) 80 percent non-military. As a result, denying such agency horrifies counterinsurgents because it leads to, among other undesirable consequences, lost wars. And lots of them. Welcome to the McCain administration.“

Could you translate?