We quit = We surrender + time
Define ‘win’. Make ‘win’ mean ‘security and stability’. Forget creating a nation-state. Forget creating a constitutional representative democracy. Forget a thugocracy like Chicago, because you are dealing with armed people willing to fight for themselves.
Set your standards for how much security and stability is acceptable. Like, don’t murder Western foreigners. Decide how much opium can be grown and exported - if the local warlords are willing to supress the excess – or be willing to pay off with more than the opium can fetch . Determine how many – and which – warlords or clan chiefs you want to own the ground the UN amusingly calls a ‘country’. Negotiate the ground rules for governance. Negotiate how much deference must be faked and payoffs made to the ‘government” at what fee.
Base American forces – maybe a couple of brigades – and conduct punitive expeditions as needed.
This is Plan A.
There are other plans, but they test American Will far more severely.
Dave Petraus has his Plan A. Here is another one to consider.
Well spoken, Jim. If only our leaders could be as clear…
By: Ken McFetridge on July 1, 2010
at 5:52 am
[...] Conservative). To date, no one else has picked up on this within the Virginia blogosphere, but Jim Bowden and Jerry Fuhrman lodged their criticisms earlier. As one would expect from the rightosphere, [...]
By: Afghanistan: why we must stay – and win « The right-wing liberal on July 6, 2010
at 11:24 am
[...] Conservative). To date, no one else has picked up on this within the Virginia blogosphere, but Jim Bowden and Jerry Fuhrman lodged their criticisms earlier. As one would expect from the rightosphere, [...]
By: Afghanistan: why we must stay – and win « Virginia Virtucon on July 6, 2010
at 11:24 am