[Lorric]

@ Scotty

That is actually quite disturbing. Soldiers could very easily look like a bunch of trigger-happy thugs following that doctrine.

I remember being under the impression at the time that it was a simple matter that there were some terrorist training camps in Afghanistan that trained these men, and it was a simple matter of putting these camps out of business and that would be that.

To simplify it further: There was a threat to civilian lives.

Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.

Due to the US policy, they became a threat to civilian lives.

Everyone agrees upon disarming a threat on civilian lives and will put resources into that.

Rinse and repeat.

Oh, it's getting depressing...

War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.

[Lorric]

Well that Battuta now deleted in-the-wrong-place-post at least lightened my mood a bit.

[Grizzly]

War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.

That's not really how wars work. Wars are not about destroying an enemy, it's won by eliminating it's means to fight back (and then enforce a good peace resolution). For example, Germany's war machine was powered by it's rather massive industrial capacity. Germany lost because they lost the resources to power that industrial capacity, and the industrial capicity itself was bombed to smithereens by a very effective strategic bombing campaign (in which tons of civilians died because they worked in those industries - The scary part about WW2 is that it was fought on such a large scale that humans themselves became resources). You could, off-course, entirely destroy them, but this is disfavorable because entirely destroying something is rather overkill. And you can't afford that.

What powers the Taliban? Massive amounts of money earned by illegal drug trade, and it's manpower is provided by hatred or fear for the western world in general and the US in particular. How do we deal with that?

[General Battuta]

War has in fact always been hellishly complex - even World War II, the poster-child just war, was full of blurry moral lines and terrific atrocities on both sides. The perception of war as a simple binary based on direct attrition of the enemy's warfighters is a myth used to keep war palatable as an instrument of policy.

e: It's kind of unclear whether strategic bombing of Germany did much to hamper their industry. In some specific cases it seems like a decisive yes, but in others it's very difficult to be certain.

[Lorric]

War used to be so simple. You see an enemy, you destroy him. Keep doing that until there are no enemies left.

What powers the Taliban? Massive amounts of money earned by illegal drug trade, and it's manpower is provided by hatred or fear for the western world in general and the US in particular. How do we deal with that?

And that again fell into the problem of "morals". Because if we torch the drugs, people are out of a job. I remember the question of torching the drugs came up quite early.

[Grizzly]

e: It's kind of unclear whether strategic bombing of Germany did much to hamper their industry. In some specific cases it seems like a decisive yes, but in others it's very difficult to be certain.

Fair enough. I also overlooked an important point in WW2: Most of the battles (Africa, Eastern Front) were lost because of problems with/destruction of supply lines (leaving the germans without weapons, food, or ammunition), not by destroying the means of production outright. Still, I think my main point remains: It's about eleminiating the other's capability of fighting back.

And that again fell into the problem of "morals". Because if we torch the drugs, people are out of a job. I remember the question of torching the drugs came up quite early.

We don't have to torch the drugs. We need to ensure that drugs are no longer a viable income for the Taliban. There's other ways of achieving that. e: Keep in mind that one of the goals here is to reduce hatred against the US to ensure that the Taliban are left without new recruits. Destruction will not work.

[Lorric]

We don't have to torch the drugs. We need to ensure that drugs are no longer a viable income for the Taliban. There's other ways of achieving that. e: Keep in mind that one of the goals here is to reduce hatred against the US to ensure that the Taliban are left without new recruits. Destruction will not work.

I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.

[Scotty]

As it so happen, the US doesn't really torch drugs in Afghanistan.  One of the team sergeants in my unit worked closely with brigade-level support in Kandahar province, and the general procedure for burning poppy crops (as of December 2012, obviously could have changed) went something like this:

US announces to governor of province that they've identified and are going to burn a poppy field.  Since we're trying to keep relations fairly decent with politicians, if not the actual populous, we run it by the governor for approval first.
Governor agrees to approve the burning, but urges US forces to wait for a period of one week or so.
Governor alerts owner of the field that the Americans are coming, harvest it now.
Farmers have a week or so to harvest the field.
Americans burn the now-spent field, conveniently clearing it to be used again and doing a good deal of the actual effort in readying it for the next cycle.
Famers replant poppy field.

End result: The United States Army is in many ways an integral part of the heroin industry in Afghanistan by providing free labor.

Isn't the world a grand place?

EDIT: The prevailing attitude among the members of my unit who have actually been on deployment as civil affairs soldiers (and one as infantry) leans unanimously on the side of "We shouldn't be there".  These are the people who get schools built; who work closely with governors, elders, and imams; who settle territorial disputes; who console grieving widows when their husbands are accidentally killed by drone strikes or soldiers.  My company is made up of 18 people, and I'm one of three that haven't been in Iraq or Afghanistan for at least two years and three deployments.  The boots on the ground that actually deal with this **** think it's stupid, too.

[Grizzly]

I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.

It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.

[Lorric]

I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.

It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.

You've stepped into an area I know little about here, so I can't really judge whether such a thing would work or not. Anyway, it's been a nice chat.

[Nuke]

i kinda wish we would switch over to a world domination policy. im tired of setting up puppet governments that hate us.

[Mikes]

I don't know how you'd do that. Especially with the sheer scale of Afghanistan's drug production.

It's quite simple really: Stop people from buying heroïn from the Afghans. Most of the heroïn in Afghanistan goes to the USA, for one. If the USA would do a better job at actually tending their own drug problem (instead of declaring war on it), or removed the legislation that prevents the US populace of actually competing with Afghanistan, that would work. Heck, they could legalize the whole thing, subsidize it, and get high import tarifs on the import! It's what the US and EU do all the time with agriculture, and it ensures that sub-saharan Africa can't develop proper agriculture because farmers there keep getting outcompeted by basically free food.

As someone who is working with young people every day ...  let me just tell you right here, that you have no idea what you are talking about.

You could make a case of "responsible adults" and "responsible use" all you want ... but considering how many problems our teenagers already have, how little constraint they show, and how utterly unprepared they are for substances that can cause severe addiction with just a few uses...  I shudder to think about how a folly like legalizing hard drugs would impact teenager culture, schools and in consequence, the longterm future of the country.

Substances like heroine or Crystal Meth and the way the hijack the brain just can not be compared to currently legal drugs like alcohol.
You legalize them and make availability go through the roof while making price plumet at the same time and you pretty much create a nationwide drug addicted generation from hell.

Responsible parenting has a good chance of keeping your children away from illegal drugs, but legal ones? Phat chance with peer pressure and everyone else doing them. Just look at alcohol. Everyone tries that.
If you legalize hard drugs you pretty much guarantee that almost every child will try one of them at least once ... and you know, with some of that stuff ... once is enough to completely destroy a life.

How about we just shoot ourselves and be done with it? Problem solved as well, right? LOL.

i kinda wish we would switch over to a world domination policy. im tired of setting up puppet governments that hate us.

Making the rest of the world hate you would be better?

[Grizzly]

Okay! Give them soft drugs so there's no reason to try hard ones! Anything to lower demand . The Dutch have consistently managed to lower heroïn consumption over the past years, so why can't the Americans?

[Scotty]

Considering that the Dutch live in different political circumstances, have different widespread views about individualism (this is more because the United States [note: not Americans.  I bet Canada wouldn't appreciate it] is weird), and have hugely less area in which to both grow, distribute, hide, etc. large quantities of illicit drugs, I'm not sure that "Population A did it, so Population B must be capable" really fits the situation.

Supply and demand works a little like that.  In the Netherlands, there are 16 million (approximate) people living in an area the size of Maryland.  Maryland is a very small state.  When you fit 300 million people (again approximate) into 3.8 million square miles, enforcement becomes something of a different problem.

[Grizzly]

Fair enough.