Please do. Then the international community needs to take the necessary steps to make sure all who are recruited to fight in Afghanistan leave only in a body bag.
Jihadists can check in but they can't check out.

Posted by: PMK at July 18, 2008 9:16 AM

Better yet glass over the entire region after we've allowed the decent folk to bail.

Posted by: Abu_Lahab at July 18, 2008 9:54 AM

You know what is the motivation factor in all of this? If Chertof or any other western leader cannot see what drives them, clearly they western leaders are either extremely smart or absolutely stupid. Looking at possible explanations one thing always comes to mind the constant state of war and chaos in Islamic countries. That state of war is because their religion prescribes to it and commands all faithful to follow those precepts without question. Throughout the globe from North Africa to the Philippines to India and Europe and USA. We see that a common factor of violence involves Muslims and Islam against either themselves which is okay, but also against non Muslims which is bad.

Posted by: savsiv at July 18, 2008 10:17 AM

Since Afghanistan is essentially an empty sh$$hole any way, it's a good place to concentrate them for disposal. Less collateral damage that way.

Now if we can get our political and military leaders to spend a little less time trying to win the "hearts and minds" of terrorists and more time fighting to win the war, we may make a little progress here.

Not holding my breath though.

Of course we need to stop sending money to Pakistan to give to the terrorists (via the Paki military and intelligence service) and seal that border. And if there's anything the American government is good at it's securing a border. . .oh wait, we're screwed.

Posted by: walterc at July 18, 2008 10:33 AM

This is obviously more proof that we are doing quite well in Iraq. The jihadists have moved to Afghanistan since they are experiencing huge defeats in Iraq

Posted by: Cinder at July 18, 2008 11:01 AM

It is tempting to look on the bright side of this and resurrect that "honeypot" idea -- you know, get "all the jihadis in one place and then kill 'em." But that isn't quite what happens. First, they never do all get in one place, and it takes a great deal of effort, and great expense, to kill them. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on training and outfitting an American solider or marine properly; the enemy they face has cost nothing, and is easily replaceable.

And that's the main thing: there are not a limited number of people who need killing in Afghanistan or elsewhere, because their numbers are endlessly -- and easily -- replenishable from the more than a billion Muslims.

Under the circumstances, it makes more sense to let the locals be given some (small) support, and allowed to fight or crush the Taliban and Al Qaeda as those locals see fit, using the methods that they have long been inured to and that we tremble at the prospect of employing.

Posted by: Hugh at July 18, 2008 11:41 AM

Hey Hugh,

It's very rare that I disagree with you, but in this case I'm going to have to politely do so.

If we use the tech that we have, we hunt them down, blow them up remotely, via drone or high altitude bomber and keep the men and women of the Allied Armed Forces at a healthy distance.

They won't even know what's hit them. How intimidating would that be? One minute they're training, the next they're finding out that the 72 virgins was a lie.

Posted by: Abu_Lahab at July 18, 2008 11:52 AM

Under the circumstances, it makes more sense to let the locals be given some (small) support, and allowed to fight or crush the Taliban and Al Qaeda as those locals see fit, using the methods that they have long been inured to and that we tremble at the prospect of employing.
by Hugh

And if the locals support the Taliban and al Qaeda as they did (and probably still do) pre 9/11, what then? Even the barbarism of 9/11 wasn't enough for them to withdraw their support. They cheered instead. How many locals DON'T support al Qaeda's aims, if not its methods?
They just don't want to be the targets. If al qaeda uses Afghanistan as a base and points its weapons in another direction the Afghans don't care.

There's no need to kill them, just quarantine them. No one who comes out of Afghanistan can be allowed to enter a Western country. The same applies to Pakistan and Iran.

Posted by: PMK at July 18, 2008 12:05 PM

To a certain degree, I must agree with SAVSIV.

As Bernard Lewis points out: "Traditional Islam views the world as belonging in one of two houses. The house of Islam and the house of war."

Posted by: joe-six-pack at July 18, 2008 12:26 PM

its kind of amusing so for much of the time all the attention was paid on iraq, and now islamists are high tailing it to afganistan with the help l amsure of the pak and iran. islamists are like water they pour in where its easier to maneurve. l agree with Hugh, arm those who hate those taliban foreigners in
their country to kill them. and then use hi tech to kill further. better to kill them than bring them to camp g'itmo were they will be freed anyway.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at July 18, 2008 1:45 PM

Better yet glass over the entire region after we've allowed the decent folk to bail.

Abu_Lahab

After reading all the above comments, I think the one above by Abu_Lahab works best. (Only takes 1/2 hour with one submarine.)

Posted by: Spot on at July 18, 2008 2:07 PM

"Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East"..This is where we need to infiltrate their networks with our people so we can know what the jihadis are planning. This is where they are doing their recruiting. This is their weakest point!!!

Posted by: johnson28539 at July 18, 2008 2:55 PM

Islam needs a place for Muslims to die. Accommodate them. Things have not gone so well for them in Iraq as of late. So back to their roots they go. Only now we are right next to their hide out.

Better they go there then next door. Gun regulations and all.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at July 18, 2008 4:21 PM

Well, hey, after all, Barack Hussain Obama, the Messiah of the New Age of Reason, says we must send our troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to "fight the war that counts." If our current generals can organize something similar to what has happened in most of Iraq over the past 12 months, all well and good. However, the Russians, who fought with out quarter, lost. Iraq is and will prove historically, to be worthwhile. Afghanistan will not. So, Hugh, pay the people to defend themselves, but don't send too many of our folks to die for them. UAVs and any other technology are just fine...glass it over if you wish, along with most of the Tribal and Federal areas of Pakistan..and be done with it.

Posted by: spinoneone at July 18, 2008 9:59 PM

Here is the 'money quote' from Jacques Ellul, on the nature of islam, from his preface on Jihad in Islam, written for "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam". I have cited it here many times, but it is worth quoting again, by way of supporting savsiv's observations, above.

It is also brief enough and telling enough to be used in letters to the Editor, letters to politicians, and newspaper online talkbacks and blog fields. One may, if one wishes, identify Jacques Ellul as, for example, 'the French sociologist and gadfly', or (if you are dealing with a 'left of centre' audience, casually mention that he was the author of "The Technological Society' and 'Propaganda').

So: here is Ellul on Islam, in one sentence.

"there is so much talk nowadays of the 'tolerance' and fundamental 'peacefulness' of Islam, that it is necessary to recall its nature, which is fundamentally warlike!"

Savsiv - you are right on the money when you note the prevalence of internecine strife in the Islamosphere.

Here is Ellul again, from the same text, preparing to deliver his judgement on the oft-presented idea of jihad as 'inner struggle':

"In Islam... jihad is a religious obligation. It forms part of the duties that the believer must fulfil; it is Islam's normal path to expansion. And this is found repeatedly, dozens of times in the Koran.

'Therefore, the believer [by making war] is not denying the religious message. Quite the reverse, jihad is the way he best obeys it. And the facts, which are recorded meticulously and analysed [by Bat Yeor] clearly show that the jihad is not a 'spiritual war' but a real military war of conquest. It expresses the agreement between the fundamental book and the believers' practical strivings.

'But Bat Yeor shows that things are not so simple.

*Since the jihad is not solely an external war, it can break out within the Muslim world itself - and wars among Muslims have been numerous, but always with the same features."

Wars among Muslims have been numerous, but always with the same features.

There speaks Ellul the historian and sociologist, having absorbed instruction from another historian, Bat Yeor, whose work he respected enormously.

Oh yes, the jihad means 'inner struggle'. But that 'inner struggle' should perhaps be decoded as referring simply to what we crass non-Muslims call "civil war". On a level below that, it manifests as what we non-Muslims despise and condemn - "family violence", "child abuse" and "wife-beating".

Jihad jihad jihad. External struggle = attacking and killing non-Muslims. Internal struggle = the Ummah 'purifying' itself by murderous civil wars century after century; and Muslim men beating their wives and murdering wife, mother, daughter, sister, cousin or even a nonrelated woman, quite often not for even actually breaking the impossibly draconian rules of conduct imposed on her, but on the basis of the paranoid suspicion that she might have done so, or might be going to do so.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 18, 2008 11:18 PM