How to Win in Afghanistan. Seriously.

927. That’s the number of soldiers who have died in Afghanistan according to Washingtonpost.com- Fallen Heroes Project as of today. That’s almost 1000. Every life lost impacts a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, or even a son or daughter. And according to the powers that be we can expect a surge of casulties to increase as our planned troop levels increase. Not too appealing. Every American knows why we are there. And I have a plan to get us out or at least keep our troops out of the crosshairs.

Now to win in Afghanistan we need to set  clear goals . I was under the impression that we went to Afghanistan to kill Osama Bin Laden and drive out the Taliban who were harboring him.  Eight years later and we have no trace or intelligence that leads us to believe we know where he is at. Is he in the Swat Valley? Maybe he is and maybe he’s not. America had our chance to kill him at Tora Bora and the powers that be were either too incompetent or were not interested in letting America’s Boogie Man get taken out of the picture for any myriad of reasons.

Vice President Joe Biden likes to throw out some bizarre mathematics when he says “we have $1 invested in Pakistan for every $30 we have invested in Afghanistan”.   Joe Biden would like to see that number reversed. With reasons that range from “that’s where Al-Qaeda is” or that “Pakistan is the country with nukes” and that endangers America more than Afghanistan. Well Joe your wrong. Afghanistan needs that much because they have nothing. Zilch. Zero. Pakistan is getting more than enough money. They have an economy. They can even afford nuclear weapons. You know those pointy things that demolish a city. Yeah, they have them and fighter planes. So excuse me if I don’t think that we should have to buy them billions of dollars of weapons and equipment so the Afghans can beat back the Taliban with prayer rugs. According to Joe Biden’s philosophy we should give all the college funding money to rich white kids. Why? Because their the ones who go to college. We need to build up Afghanistan period. Pakistan is playing us. I’m not saying that they haven’t done a good job in the War on Terror. They caught Khalid-Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11, and other Al-Qaeda cronies. Back during the Cold War nations knew that if you went to America and told them you had Communists in your country and needed help the money would pour in. That is the same situation with Pakistan. They will do just enough to make us happy but not enough to destroy the problem because big money is to tied to their struggle with Al-Qaeda. Once AQ is done, so is the gravy train.We must continue funding Afghanistan.

Every talking head on television loves to come on the screen and sprout off “Afghanistan is ruled by warlords”. And? That is a bonus. A country ruled by lords of war. Because we are fighting a war. The game is to get the “warlords” to fight our enemy. Basically in a nutshell what we need to do is give these “warlords” an incentive to keep their territory free from Taliban and Al-Qaeda. How? Real simple. There is an old Afghan saying,” you can’t  buy an Afghan. You can only rent him”. Now what we need to do is make these warlords rich by having them deliver peace. We need to have our CIA/Military figure out who has muscle in that country. Who can protect civilians and keep peace and quiet. Who are the political and military Alpha-males. Once we identify these people we need to make them this offer. If you can get roads paved and built in your area we will give you x amount of dollars. For every school and clinic that opens and does not get destroyed or harmed. We will give you x amount of dollars. For every IED or soldier that gets harmed in your territory you will forfeit a percentage of your monthly income that you generated by the roads, schools, and clinics.  For every Al-Qaeda you capture or kill you will be rewarded.  You can get more bees with honey.

Buy up the poppy crop. We are continously told that the poppy crop is funding the insurgency or the Taliban/Al-Qaeda. Ok. We know the farmers are going to grow the poppies. We have to accept that. In return we buy up the crop so that our enemies can’t use it for funding. Once we have it we then destroy it. Now the farmers have a customer in us and not an adversary. And the Taliban will have to find another way to make money.

Finally use Americans as the backup for the Warlords.  If the Warlords are having problems with Taliban and Al-Qaeda they can ask for help and it will not hurt their financial bottom line. We need to know where and who the insurgents are then we can destroy them. To have our soldiers playing Kabul Policeman is ridiculous. Afghans need to learn to protect their country. We have bought them enough time. Now we are there to help. But to drive from town to town and get blown up by I.E.D.’s is only going to lose the war. We need to make progress every day and every hour. Progress is a semblence of normalcy.

These are just some ideas that I feel could help. Afghanistan is an empire killer. But America does not fall into the trap that other countries have in the past. We do not want to own Afghanistan. We want them to be able, so that when we leave, they can beat back the Taliban. Without a Taliban then there is possibly no free hand for Al-Qaeda to build camps and re-start up the process that was before America came. No Taliban in Afghanistan. No Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. And then when we look at Afghanistan we can see cleary that  we have won.

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