i dunno what you are talking about dude. in real life, when conversations confuse me, i request a high five and then leg it. i would do that now.
What foolishness! Convincing a combatant to switch sides is not aiding the enemy, it is aiding ourselves and hurting the enemy.
Such is the nature of counter-insurgency. It is a struggle between securing the population, which consists of many different functions, and direct action against insurgents. The former is much more difficult than the latter, but it doesn't help to kill a guy who's only reason to emplace an IED is a little money so he can put food on the table. No doubt, there are hard-core religious idiots from different countries and terrorist cells, and those are the ones who need to be found and killed. The best way to do that is by isolating them from the populous. That, in a nutshell, is counter-insurgency.
We could pay each Taliban, assuming for a moment that there at 10,000 of those suckahs, $8,000 per week and still be ahead. Most information I have seen is that Iraq and Afghan were costing $3.5 B a week last year. Iraq was bigger, Afhan was small. Lots of data on Iraq at $2B a week, soo...I am willing, without spending much time, go with a very conservative, and based on ramp up, low, $1.5B a week. So if we go 10,000 rag heads times $8,000 week that is a mere $800M a week. We cut the costs in half and don't loose another US body. And we give them evil money that will corrupt from within. If we go to $8,000 a month, still a princely sum, we cut the current cost to 1/8 and everybody still happy. If you do not like this, then go enlist. Money is how we beat Russia, and frankly, when converted to industrial capacity, how we helped win WWII. Money is what we do best.
How about we spend $0 and just bring everyone home. Spending money is what we do best. And that isn't a good thing.
Well, to be fair, bringing everyone home would also cost an exorbitant amount of money. Not to mention the logistical impossibility of just dropping everything and leaving.
