I really respect Getty Images’ John Moore and one of his packages from his last trip to Afghanistan struck me as we are considering Gen. McChrystal’s decision to avoid fighting in populated areas.
From John’s images and commentary, we can see that on the ground, this attempt at sterilization will be very difficult and throw ambiguity into the fight for coalition troops.
There may just be some areas where the hearts and minds approach just won’t work ever.
– Christian
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Old footage, but if you like that, you can also check out this.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warbriefing/
Bunch of tribes with no unified voice, who prefer to live the way they want w/o foreign interference, no matter how many gifts(with strings)we bring.
Young men by nature also lend themselves towards being easy prey for any cause that involves fighting-especially when it involves another foreign invader.
In that “War Breifing” I link I posted, a soldier said it don’t matter if you from Kabul…if you ain’t Korenghali like them, you ain’t one of them.
My brother recently came back from Afghan. He spent a lot of time in the middle of nowhere on a base. A lot of the “locals” that worked on the base were Taliban infiltrators. The base’s liberal wingnut commander tried the “we are your friends” thing with them. To make a long story short, she ended up getting several American GI’s killed because she valued the Taliban’s lives over our GI’s.
I have to agree with what Sonny Puzika said on “Deadliest Warrior” when a rifle shot hit a target between the eyes, “That’s winning their hearts and minds…”