Maybe I didn't see this news coverage but it was new news to me.. $8k per person to stop fighting.. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! YouTube - Ron Paul and Rand Paul Discuss Healthcare & National Security 7:25 INTO IT.
It worked in Iraq. It's the Petraeus strategy. Many of these insurgents that the hardcore Taliban recruit are not islamic ideologues, just unemployed young men with too much time on their hands trying to escape poverty and boredom. A guy gives them a rifle, tells them they are doing God's work and Presto!, they are an insurgent. Somebody. It costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars per insurgent killed. If we can get them out of the fight by paying them 8 grand, then it accomplishes several goals. 1. It gets the insurgent out of the fight, by giving him the resources to buy a farm, open a shop, stock a chicken-house, or travel to the city where more opportunities lie. 2. It raises the economy of this desperately poor country by putting cash in the hands of people rather than filtering it through UN aid agencies, corrupt Iraqi government bureaus, local warlords, etc. The Taliban count on poor, illiterate people with no other opportunities. 3. It improves partnership with the local tribal leaders who see cooperating with us as a positive over cooperating with the Taliban. These are the people who pull all of the young men together 4. It keep villages from having to grow opium as the only means of making ends meet. The Taliban control the opium black market in Afghanistan.
A few more points. 1. How the hell are you going to track this. 2. What happens when you stop paying. 3. Most here think these people are irrational illogical ragheads on a religion crusade. You want to just buy them off. Well how F'in rational is that? 4. Our tax dollars will be paying those that may have killed our service-men. There is nothing about this that is right.
This has not proven to be the case. You are misinformed once again. It wasn't the "surge" that turned the tide in Iraq. The surge permitted the commanders to hold the place together while we bribed the Sunni tribal chiefs to change sides from aiding Al Qaeda in Iraq to fighting against them for pay. That is what turned the tide and had the side benefit of forcing the Shiites to treat the Sunnis more fairly.
