I have been asked my opinion about the War in Afghanistan by my peers more than once and I had come back to them with, “no one has won an occupation” for many years. Then the United States won an occupation in Iraq, I was surprised, something I had regarded as an unshakeable rule had crumbled. The United States may not have done very well, the victory was and continues to be shaky, but a poor showing of doing what has never been accomplished is still pretty damn impressive.
Out of the crucible of Iraq came “The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual” which reviews what an insurgency is and what tactics are successful against them. I strongly recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about insurgencies and what NATO is doing in Afghanistan. General Petraeus was involved in writing the manual and now he is commander of US forces in Afghanistan. As one would learn from reading the manual, Petraeus was in command of the first pacified region of Iraq. How to pacify a region had been a mystery and so there was a fair amount of autonomy and Petraeus successfully found how to do it and was tasked with others to compile the field manual so that it could be widely implemented which resulted in the Iraqi victory. Basically, if any general can win in Afghanistan it is Petraeus. I believe he can and will win.
NATO needs to finish this fight because 20 years ago Afghanistan was just left hanging after the Soviet pull out. When that happened most of the infrastructure was left in ruins and there was very little hope for the future which facilitated the Taliban takeover of the country. If NATO leaves now this will repeat itself and our children will revisit this mountain nation just as we are there now.
Out of the crucible of Iraq came “The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual” which reviews what an insurgency is and what tactics are successful against them. I strongly recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about insurgencies and what NATO is doing in Afghanistan. General Petraeus was involved in writing the manual and now he is commander of US forces in Afghanistan. As one would learn from reading the manual, Petraeus was in command of the first pacified region of Iraq. How to pacify a region had been a mystery and so there was a fair amount of autonomy and Petraeus successfully found how to do it and was tasked with others to compile the field manual so that it could be widely implemented which resulted in the Iraqi victory. Basically, if any general can win in Afghanistan it is Petraeus. I believe he can and will win.
NATO needs to finish this fight because 20 years ago Afghanistan was just left hanging after the Soviet pull out. When that happened most of the infrastructure was left in ruins and there was very little hope for the future which facilitated the Taliban takeover of the country. If NATO leaves now this will repeat itself and our children will revisit this mountain nation just as we are there now.
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