Why debate the war?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Oh there is no question that if we set out to 'win' the war we could/would.

But they would have to restort to methods that would not be looked upon favoribly but the 'world'.

In the meantime we will continue to police the region pouring man and machine into a bottomless pit.

If you define "win" as the coimplete annihilation of enemy fighters, that you can only acchieve by killing most of the population in fghanistan and wip9ing Pakistan off the map. Neutron bombs and nuclear bombs, maybe biological weapons. but if you kill all people there are, so noithing is left that could be liberated, gained, freed, whatever, this is as juch a win as was it a saving of a city when that general in Vietnam said: in order to save that city we had to destroy it. to "defeat" or to annihilate the enemy in that kind of country with infrantry and air strikes is an idea you can forget about. Even with 500,000 troops you would fail in the long run. Always.

Not to mention that all this was not the declared goal of the war in the beginning, after 9/11.

This idea is what the author is criticising: the wrong belief that if only we put more time and more troops into it, victory is just a question of time then. Military peope get trained to believe that there is nothing they cannot acchieve by the means of the military. Generals hate to admit that a mssion annot be accomplished. It is so very very typically "military" a thinking scheme. recruits get trained to think like that to boost their self-.cinfidence in the face of maximum threat and hazards to their life. But when this kind of self-confidence is not put into relation by more general education and situational understanding in the commanding and planning ranks, then this leads to wars going amiss, and endless military odysseys. Patreus in parts has understood this trap, but in parts nevertheless ended up in falling into the same trap again with his doctrine. His succees in Iraq already falls apart again, since it could not last without strong milizary action, that America now restrains itself from to a wide degree.