[jbour13]

Originally Posted by Jack S.

My military history professor had a saying: 'managers of violence.' He used to say that so long as a military plan does not have a goal which is a certain political endgame that all that plan would be doing is 'managing violence.' He defined any military plan that did have a political endgame as strategy. Going from this, so long as all we're doing is killing jihadis (a sound motive itself) without any thought in mind to what we're going to do when there are no jihadis left we're really doing nothing but 'managing violence.' This is why it is very important to always have a political/civil endgame in mind. Killing until there's nothing left to kill is not victory.

My $.02

Jack

PS: When I use the moniker 'we,' I am referring to the United States as a whole and not to the the QPs. I in no way think of myself as SF.

What do you say of a country that is predominately defined by violence as a means to gain access to power and is not full of Jihadis? What about just those choosing to utilize the aforementioned violence to gain something that resembles law and order? Pashtun Wali is a bitch, especially when you are not Pashtun.

You'll soon find out that everything in this country (Afghanistan) has a political motive, and violence is the cohesive bond that brought it to fruition.

A better quote that would summarize and make sense of this article (given the highlight of the 9 year long war itself) is the following:

"It can be argued that changing strategy every six to twelve months is tantamount to having no strategy whatsoever, particularly if that is not justified by changes in the insurgents own strategy"
Antonio Guistozzi - Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007

Something to think about.