At least on the surface it sounds like the surge counter-insurgency tactics used in Iraq. It may be that they’ve decided to try something like it in Afghanistan, but a counter-insurgency before you’ve actually taken primary control seems a bit premature.

“Differently”? Yeah! I’ll say! You can do it right or you can do it differently! This is going to get people killed for no good reason. Another reason why it is desirable to elect a Commander-in-Chief who has at least the slightest acquaintance with the military and its mission!
Is this the most boneheaded thing you’ve heard of in a long time? As Commander-in-Chief, Obama votes “Present”!

This is exactly how the Surge started in Fallujah (before it was taken Iraq-wide) with huge success. This strategy was also being formulated under Bush.

Afghanistan is not Germany, and this is not WW2. We’re not fighting a well organized, highly trained, and lethally efficiant enemy. We’re fighting a band of rag tag militias who blow themselves up as a means of attack and cowardly strike civilians. The same tactics that worked for WW2 will not work here.

The mistake is to take an “either/or” approach, when a “both/and” approach is needed. This is just appeasement. Iraq is not the same situation that exists in Afghanistan, and treating it the same way is just stupid.

I wonder if OBAMA is going to have our Troops surrender?

It’s time to call a spade a spade. The fact of the matter is that Pat Robertson Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps and others like them are not Christians. They are functional nihilists. They are Christian Nihilists, and their lies go marching on.

If we understand the basis of nihilism to be, “…the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.” Then it becomes very easy to trace the outlines of their belief system, and arrive at the conclusion that they are practicing nihilists in all but name.

The first problem is their rabid and fanatical belief in a coming eschatological event. As you know many Christians belief in a future time called the Rapture in which God puts an end to this world, and then commences a sorting system whereby Christians go to heaven, and Non-Christians go to hell for eternity. Understanding that this is for eternity is important, we’ll get back to it. This event takes a lot of different shapes and shades of meaning, but this is pobably the most popular understanding.

So, by believing in a final judgement that actually sends people to the place they will be for eternity immediately renders this present world as strictly temporary. This goes a long way towards removing meaning from human existence. Since Earth only temporary nothing we do here can really matter, except in as much as it might affect your final destination.

Through the rendering of this world as a temporary place these Christians fulfill the most fundamental part of nihilism which is that the world is meaningless. And what could be more meaningless than a temporary world?

And finally these Christian Nihilists put the final nail in their own coffin with their callousness towards their fellow humans. By asserting that destruction will visit any geographic area that does not follow the thinking prescribed by Pat Robertson, and then by blaming this destruction on God, Pat Robertson shows that he does not place any value on human life or existence. After all its all out of his hands. The world, the people, everything in it is temporary and subject to the whims of God. Which Robertson freely admits he cannot predict.

Its clear then that Robertson is only focused on such a time as all decisions are final. Such a time when we don’t have to wonder, “why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do…”

You see in the future all these questions have been decided, and all of us are getting are just desserts.

But in the meantime? Who knows what God’s gonna do. All you can do is wait.

This kind of ambiguity again works to remove meaning from our lives, and provides the final piece of the puzzle. The answer to why these Christian Nihilists don’t seem to DO more nice things. It is because the underlying assumptions of their beliefs inform them that doing anything is useless. You just have to let go and let God, to quote a popular evangelical saying.

So, to summarize, the world is temporary and human life is without meaning since we are unable, ultimately, to change anything because God is in control and we are subject to his whimsy. And Pat Robertson and his ilk are not Christians. They are nihilists.

Although I wish them every success, I remain skeptical.

That skepticism is not unfair. The same hyenas in Congress who demanded defeat in Iraq and many who gave us defeat in Vietnam have their finger on the abort switch. A good strategy means little if it won’t be stuck to. But, if it is stuck to, there’s little reason this shouldn’t succeed.

If these hamlets are the primary supply centers for the Taliban trhough intimidation, then occupation and denial seems like an interesting strategy. It also sounds like this would be much more effective than the zippo raids in Vietnam at winning the support of the locals.

My concerns are twofold. Marines dispersed in penny-packet positions will be vulnerable to defeat in detail. Hopefully they have an effective QRF SOP. The second is static positions invite attack especailly with indirect fire weapons. Unless the units dispersed in the villages are actively patrolling they’re going to invite an attack.

Proof, this is not a dumb, REMF idea. It is taken straight from US Special Forces doctrine, and it works.

Grunt, you are on the right freq. The key to this will be artillery and close air support, tied in with effective reaction forces. Building local militia is the primary manner in which you deny an insurgent force recruits, placing units directly in villages gives them the ability to counter the Taliban in their efforts to gain and keep support among the local population.

Each time ISAF goes into an area, does this,that and the other, then leaves, the Taliban simply strolls back in and since they are quite willing to torture and kill the civilians said civilians offer little to no resistance to the Taliban.

Show the civilian population that they CAN resist the Taliban, and build their farms and industry and villages to keep and use themselves and we will massively alter their “Paradigem”!

Maybe it’s because I’m old enough to remember how Lyndon Johnson dealt with the troops in Viet Nam, listening to policy wonks like Bill Moyers rather than his military commanders.

This whole thing just has a “PC” smell about it. Maybe it just reflects my lack of confidence in the Commander-in-Chief?
(Maybe I’m not the only one?)

My guess is that Obama has turned over the day to day strategies to the commanders on the ground and has very little to do with them. Why would you blame Obama for letting the generals do it their way?

Is this the most boneheaded thing you’ve heard of in a long time?
By Proof on July 2, 2009 at 08:37 am

No. This is:

“The mistake is to take an “either/or” approach, when a “both/and” approach is needed. This is just appeasement. Iraq is not the same situation that exists in Afghanistan, and treating it the same way is just stupid.”

I liked you better when you were just an attention seeking whore, elinas!
Proof on July 2, 2009 at 04:12 pm

Brother Proof. Still wounded, I see! That comment was not directed toward you. It was for the flag burner(s).

If I was interested in being as childish as Poofie, I could say the same things about him.

But alas, I rather keep my sword in it’s sheath and only draw it out on an opponent worthy of my intellect.

If I was interested in being as childish as Poofie, I could say the same things about him.

Like claiming you contacted a group about stalking and claimed that they advised (read: you read their FAQs) you about Proof?

You’re childish enough to put any grade school to shame.

Notice that the preeminent military expert, sannitized, has not a word about the shift from non-engagement and passive “pickup the pieces” strategy pushed by the Euroweenies of NATO to full engagement, in your face, build and hold US Special Forces/USMC tactics.

The silence is deafening. And the only problem will come when cowardly fucking assholes, like sannitized and his boy Barri, force a withdrawal and surrender to a bunch of fucking terrorists.

The proper responses to your absolute hatred for Obama were mentioned already, and it was painfully obvious to anyone who read the responses that you were being emotive and thoughtless.

Hannitized please tell me where it is written that we have to like NOBAMA. I am not required to acknowledge anything that he does right, First off the only thing has done right is added troops to Afghanastan, every thing else he has done has turned into an utter mess.

Goon,

I don’t care if you guys go after his policy or his positions.

But much of what is done against him is petty, needless and is poisoning the honest and meaningful political dialogue that needs to occur in our country for us to remain healthy as a country that can carry on a national debate.

Funny I don’t remember anyone complaining when it was happening to President Bush. I didn’t hear you complaining.

I only care that everything he does is attacked on the internet, like his dessert choice for a picnic

Lamebrainitized: I didn’t “attack” him for his choice of dessert, I only pointed out that others had pointed out that an Italian dessert is not part of a traditional Hawaiian luau. Only the most brain dead partisan hack could interpret that as an “attack”!
(Oh, yeah! I almost forgot who I was dealing with!)

meaningful political dialogue

Oh? Like you constantly calling people “swine”? Tell us again, Yellowstain, how that is “meaningful political dialogue”?

You are a partisan hack poseur, Hannitwit. Your attempts to mask what you are and what you do are more transparent than the Obama administration!

Goon,

You are not required to like him. I don’t care if you hate the guy. I only care that everything he does is attacked on the internet, like his dessert choice for a picnic. It’s really lame.

I don’t mind if his policies are challenged and criticized, if it’s fair.

Let’s at least set the bar of standards above our toenails.

Notice that sanni, the hate spewing asshole, has dragged yet another thread into being exclusively about him.

And sanni? You have spew hate filled vitriol against Bush on numerous occasions. Prove you have not. And do it now.

Notice that sanni, the hate spewing asshole, has dragged yet another thread into being exclusively about him.

Hann-Tard aka – Thread-jacker

(A)t a certain point you have to recognize that what some participants are doing are not engaging in discussion. That’s not their point. They are here to divert, distract, discredit and disrupt. That is their purpose. These bad actors are known as Internet Trolls.

– Trolls, Thread jacks, Dezinformatsia and 2010