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Originally Posted by baggygreen
Half the problem is there are too many namby pambys who won't let our military forces fight a flipping war properly!
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Our military isn't all-powerful. They have tremendous capabilities, but they also have limitations. Military force alone, no matter how unrestrained, can't win this conflict. Both Patreus (who literally wrote the book on COIN operations) and Gates recognize this. Patreus isn't going around asking to change the rules of engagement, he's asking for more non-military help.
A few months ago I went to an event where one of my US Senators was present. A serviceman who had recently returned from Afghanistan told the Senator about the problems our military was having there. A US officer would meet with an Afghan local leader and basically ask him "is there anything you want us to do?" The officer would expect the local leader to say something like "Yes, there's some bad guys over there who are giving us trouble, we'd love it if you killed them." The US military is very capable of doing that.
Instead, the local Afghan leader would say "Could you help us fix our sewer system?" That put the US soldiers in a tough situation. They really wanted to help the Afghanis, but none of the soldiers knew how to fix a sewer system, and there was nobody else they could call in for help. So their attempt to please the Afghanis would instead leave the Afghanis disappointed.
That's why our military needs help. There are lots of jobs that need to be done in Afghanistan that our military can't do.