Paying the Taliban not to fight...

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.

 

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.

 

I'm not going to. The military commanders in Iraq are running this show. Much of the money will come in installments anyway. Moreover, use of the carrot doesn't make the stick go away. They take the cheap carrot or we will kill them at great expense with the big stick.

Well, what happens when you stop shooting at them? The idea is to pay them enough to turn their lives around, which 8 grand will do in Afghanistan. A little money goes a lot further in this fashion than in bombardments. A 20-round mortar barrage costs more than $8,000 in projectiles alone , not counting the immense costs of paying, training, equipping, and transporting the soldiers there.

1. You do not speak for most of the people here by a long shot. Neither the conservatives, nor the liberals, nor the moderates claim you.

2. What you imagine and what comprise the documentable facts . . . are two very different things.

It's completely rational, it's by-the-book counter-insurgency warfare, and it works, . . . it's just not the comic-book Hollywood Rambo action that you fantasize about.

It's possible, but how do you prevent that if you are trying to turn an enemy around to our side. And that is the only way to "win" a guerilla war. Trying to use conventional military action on guerillas is just a frustrating game of "Whack A Mole".

 

That's actually your argument? :insane: