What is the alternative to an enterprise portal strategy in the Java space?

Do We Have the Right Strategy in Afghanistan?

• There's a huge difference between saying we should simply leave Afghanistan, and saying that our Counter-Insurgency (hereafter CI)strategy will not work there, and we should use a different strategy to achieve our true military objectives there. CI is based on two ideas: 1) protect the people (from each other) and 2) assure good governance (resembling USA). Both of these ideas were tried in Iraq, where Senators Graham, Lieberman, and McCain (see Wall Street Journal, 15 Sept 2009 "Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan") tell us they were wonderfully successful. Let's look at that. It's a little early to predict success in Iraq. We haven't quite left yet. When we are well and truly gone from that place, I think it will revert to chaos. Everyone bombing everyone all the time. We did expend 5000 American lives there and Trillions of dollars, so if the place doesn't fall completely apart after we withdraw 15% of our troops, that not surprizing. It's too early to declare "mission accomplished" in Iraq. And clearly too early to use Iraq as a model for the benefits of CI warfare (which didn't work in Vietnam, and didn't work in Iraq). CI is based on the idea that the common peasants can be recruited by either side. If the Taliban recruit them, we can never kill the Taliban, it always a My Lai situation where the terrorist hide among the local villagers. Gen Petraeus, and now Gen Stanley McChrystal, tell us that winning requires that we bring the peasants to our side so the Taliban has nowhere to hide. The environment becomes friendly to our forces, and unfriendly to the insurgents. The problem is there's too many people to be bribed. They are spread out over too large an area. We can't possibly protect them or pay them. We can't police every back alley of every village in an country the size of Texas and the topography of Switzerland. The cost in American lives will be too high, and frankly we just don't have the cash for it. In Iraq, we took in steamer trunks of $100 bills to buy the affections of those tribal leaders who, for huge wads of cash were willing to mimic being on our side for a few weeks in Anbar Province. Big deal! Money does talk. We knew that -- right? So it's not the Petraeus Miracle -- it's just the way of the world, not a new discovery. If there is a safer and cheaper alternative that will get the job done, then the CI Strategy is the wrong one, and we should switch over to the safer cheaper strategy -- which is called Inside the Wire. The problem is that the fix is in for CI in Washington. All the suppliers of weapons have set up their political contributions based on the idea that no new strategy would be used -- it would be CI right till the end. Graham, Lieberman, and McCain need to be introduced to a new generation. McCain was one of the Keating Five who cost America $500 Billion in the Savings and Loan scam. Lieberman was the guy who insisted that all Labor Union rules be followed, so it took almost four years to set up the Department of Homeland Security -- no deadwood could be fired, no incompetents let go. Graham (along with Henry Hyde) caused about 1/4 of Clinton's Presidency to be spent explaining what he did with the fat girl behind the copying machine. This grievously harmed the most successful Presidency we've had since Eisenhower. Clinton in 8 years created 23 million new jobs. If we could have a month out of that Presidency today our recession would be over and we would be dancing in the streets. Anyhow, these three morally bankrupt Senators are not just urging that we stay in Afghanistan (which I agree with), but they are also urging that we stick with CI as our strategy, whcih seems to me very dumb. The mission is to kill 20,000 Al Qaida and 150,000 Taliban in Afghnaistan. This can be done out of Bagram and from the Fleet offshore using Predator and other airborne assets. The contractor arrangements now in place would be disrupted, of course. New fixes would need to be put in. But the Agencies that could do the job are: 1) Space Command, 2) National Reconaissance Office, and 3) National Security Agency, with a little help from about 24 men in CIA Black Ops to do PIR device placement, which must be done on the ground, and by hand. So there is a better strategy. It's just less convenient for the Washington Pols -- the morally bankrupt status quo seekers who like the arrangements that are now in place. The Sheeple are hardly in a position to call for a radical change of strategy -- but George Will has done it, and I am doing it. What do you think?

• Answer:

  Invading Iraq was an act of idiocy. After 9/11, America wanted to kick Arabs, and Saddam happened to be home, so on the basis of fictional and doctored evidence, the US kicked the door in and started busting heads and taking names. Left to his own devices, Saddam would have just carried on oppressing his own people, but more importantly he would have cracked down on any Al-Quaida elements who might have tried to destablise his (secular) regime. His attitude to rebellion and dissent is well known. He wouldn't have been a friend to the West, but he wouldn't have been much of a danger either. After the invasion, every Jihadi with an axe to grind was buying a one-way ticket to Iraq, quite apart from the factional infighting taking place among the Iraqis. The result was hundreds of thousands of dead and injured and a country which probably won't be stable for many years. Afghanistan, while more deserving of invasion to deal with the Taliban, was handled badly. Trying to introduce US-style democracy to people who've been organised in clans and tribes since long before the US even existed probably isn't a good move. Afghans don't really do democracy, equal rights, or many other social concepts which Americans take for granted. They're a pragmatic people who have been on the receiving end of a tidal wave of sh*t for decades and will just do what benefits them, their tribe and their kin. Sometimes that will be what the US wants, sometimes not. COIN probably isn't the best strategy for Afghanistan, but I'm not sure that playing Nintendo Wars with airstrikes and drone attacks is necessarily the best alternative. Deal with the narcotics industry for a start; Buying the stuff from the farmers and destroying it will be cheaper than fighting the 'war on drugs' at home while making you part of the economy. If you're financially benefiting them, they're more likely to stay on side. Then junk the democracy experiment and try to play politics like the Afghans do (and have done for centuries). It isn't a perfect solution, but probably better than Vietnam With Turbans, which is the way its going now.