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Rodney G. Graves

Pulix Delendum Est; Part IV

Still back in ancient times (October of 2001)

Rodney Graves replies yet again:

 Rodney Graves replied to a Sand Flea with:
It is a question of world view.

I've pretty much sat out the debate which "inspired" you to this height of reasoning and  logic <\sarc>. I don't find the proposal to be appealing. I do, however, find that it  passes the reality test.

A Sand flea replied with:

Not even close. Your plan would cost more in blood and treasure and leave us less safe. Hardly an improvement.

Not my plan. Nor one I have proposed. Nor one that I really care for, in point of fact. Had you read the message, that would have been clear to you... But even so, history has ample evidence of the effectiveness of a Tacitean "Peace." It has worked before, and I see no arguments from you which suggest it cannot be made to work again. I'm not fond of the proposal myself, as I clearly stated later in my earlier response.

It's always amusing to watch reality bitch slap an ivory tower pseudo-intellectual, and the  outraged bellowing which then issues from the appropriately slapped idiot makes for high  quality entertainment. Especially when the bellowing twit has no concrete counterproposal.

My counterproposal is limited by the facts on the ground. I can't change who our president is or his policies with a wave of the hand. I can't give him the moral guts to actually discuss what the costs are, and get the American people willing to publicly back him.

And you are contributing to the debate in what positive manner? You have submitted letters to your Representative, your Senators, and the President? You have written to the editor of your local newspaper (not that the rest of the country -quite correctly- pays much attention to such coming out of Berserkly)? Put forth your plan and, if you can enunciate it, and gathered what support you can.

I can't get Bush to decide on a coherent policy. I can't staple his mouth shut when he doesn't have a prepared speech in front of him.

Thank God for Small Favors.

Bush is determined to overthrow Saddam. That is a fact of the universe, as unpleasant to deal with as the fact that Saddam can't be relied upon to keep any agreements.

Saddam needs to be put to useful ends. Fertilizer (as in he's the ingredients) sounds about right to me.

So my 'plan' is to stall until either Bush sees reason or is replaced. A half-measure invasion that doesn't allow for a swift rebuilding won't increase our safety.

In your ill informed opinion.

Do you see the world as it is, and craft solutions which do not require an overnight change in human nature, or do you squander blood and treasure on a utopian goal...

No, even worse, you damn any and all but propose no solution of your own.

Your 'solution' doesn't work. Ask Alva how successful he was in subduing the Netherlands.

Ask Cortes and Pizzaro instead.

Was there anything wrong with the Soviet Empire except they did not repress their neighbors and citizens enough, according to you?

Straw Man

Gee, if only one of the great repressive empires had been able to conquer _everybody_ in the past, _then_ we would be safe, according to Rodney. As long as we were part of that empire.

You're showing your historical ignorance yet again. All empires are not created nor governed equally. There have been examples all over the scale in terms of their effectiveness, their durability, and their degree of internal freedom. Our own brief history of Empire was certainly one of the more enlightened, if brief, examples.

A Sand Flea opined (originally):
There are a number of people on this board who hold positions I passionately disagree with. It is possible that I misunderstand what their positions are, so I hope they will correct me if I have them wrong.

There are people who claim that the US should overthrow certain governments and take no steps to install or aid a new government beyond overthrowing the new government if the US doesn't like it.

This solution, while suboptimal, has several benefits. First, it is achievable. Second, the cost in blood and treasure is calculable based on the first iteration. Since the goal is to eliminate threats to the United States, anarchy and or squalor will work in furtherance of   that goal.

First, it is not achievable. It didn't work for Hitler, Stalin or Tojo, why should it work for us?

All three of the examples you cite were (originally) working in concert to divide up the world for their own benefit. In doing so they had no qualms in conquering any nation which either stood in their way or which had something they needed. None of those belligerents was responding to an act of aggression, let alone an atrocity. If you read history with any real understanding, you would of course know this already.

You can't long control countries merely by threatening to overthrow their governments. And you want to control them because you want to control the oil.

No. I'd prefer to not have to deal with them at all. Since deal with them we must, I see no problem with extracting sufficient oil wealth to offset our expenses.

As regards to long term control, we do not occupy nor directly control the areas of Northern Iraq (the Northern No Fly Zone). Saddam and the Ba'athists have little control there without resort the use of air power. Far from falling into anarchy and squalor, the area is doing quite well. Far better than those areas of Iraq under Saddam's administration.

Can you protect the oil and oil workers without occupying the region?

Define your terms. If by region you mean the actual oil fields and the transmission pipelines to a port of embarkation, then yes, we would have to occupy those limited regions. Note that these are a relatively small and lightly populated region of Iraq.

Can you occupy the region without establishing a government?

Yes. Especially if the population is minimal and occupation is to be short term.

Having established a government, don't you have to protect it? Or is it okay to abandon governments like we abandoned South Vietnam, when we could no longer bear the cost of supporting a corrupt regime?

Hang that abandonment of South Vietnam albatross around your own liberal neck. It was one of the great accomplishments of the liberal wing of the Baby Boomers.

George Pere's two greatest failures as President were not finishing the Gulf War in Baghdad, and leaving the Marsh Arabs to the tender mercies of Saddam Hussein. George fils seems to understand just how great those failures were, and I believe he has learned from his father's mistakes.

Second, its cost is not easily calculable. What is the moral cost? What is the cost to the unity of the country when we give a significant percentage of our citizens, (those of Middle East descent), a reason to hate our Government?

Remarkable how flexible your morals are. Remarkable how you dismiss such concerns in other areas but wave them like the bloody shirt when it suits your agenda. I can think of no greater hubris and hypocrisy.

What is the cost of lost trade, of refugees, of more and more nations kicking us in the shins whenever they have the advantage?

Refugees? Just how are they going to get from Iraq to the United States? Lost trade? With whom? And if you are under the impression that a lot of the world is not kicking us in the shins when they can get away with it now, you're simply not paying attention.

What is the cost if the policy is not maintained, due to change in parties at the helm?

Like the lapse in the policy of responding forcefully and directly to terrorist attacks upon our citizens, our embassies, and our warships under l'ancien regime? Negative, of course. Such a retreat could even lead to direct terrorist actions against the continental United States resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Which is, of course, another outstanding reason to vote Republican.

What is the cost if the armed forces, with a lot of experience in knocking over governments, starts regarding as a threat to itself a party that says, "Give up all of your gains and play nice with the world again."?

Your lack of service is showing now. They obeyed the lawful orders of Slick Willy, they'll obey the lawful orders of the next President regardless of his party and the intelligence (or lack thereof) of his policies.

What is the cost of having to maintain a pro-war party in power forever in order to maintain that fear/respect thing you seek?

You're still operating under the assumption that I favor this policy. I don't. 

You also seem to be under the impression that "peace" is anything other than the relatively short and sometimes prosperous period between wars. It's not.

We didn't go looking for this war, it found us.

You are so cheerful when you say that promoting squalor and despair could be in the US interests. And what of the rest of the world which has movements which blame the US for their woes? Why give them ammunition?

Cheerful? Far from it. This is cold blooded real politic. The creatures who blame the United States for all the woes of the world will do so no matter what we do. The opportunists will seize or create opportunities which increase their power or influence at our expense when and where they can. Which should be about as much of a news flash as "The sun will rise tomorrow morning."

These people don't want to rebuild Iraq or Afghanistan with US dollars, they don't want to protect the new government, they just want to hold it responsible for everything that happens in their country!

That is a supportable restatement. But you overlook the question of their own wealth in the form of oil. Why should we spend our own treasure on these neo-barbarians when we can spend their own wealth to their benefit?

And how do you intend to spend their wealth to their benefit without an occupying army?  Without supporting some government that distributes things?

As I mentioned before, there is the current example of the areas under the Northern No Fly Zone. Utterly destroying the Iraqi Army, and especially the Republican Guards units, would go a long way towards that end.

And would we not have a stake in that government we set up?

I would feel a moral obligation towards such a government.

And if we set up a government, should it not reflect our values? After all, if we set up a dictatorship does that not say the preferred form of government by our Administration is a dictatorship?

If you want to colonize Iraq, come out and say so. Quit avoiding the hard realities and factually correct characterizations (which of course are utterly un PC). What you are proposing is not "Nation Building" it's Imperium.

Do you _really_ think that this Administration is at all likely to distribute Iraqi oil treasure in the interests of the Iraqis? Not after exalting the supremacy of American Interests!

Yes, I do. I expect that the lot of the average Iraqi would improve dramatically. I would demand that we offset our own expenses, but unlike l'ancien regime I don't expect that a lot of that largess will find it's way to the Friends of Dubya. The Kleptocracy is gone.

I think that is a foolish policy in many many ways. For one thing, International opinion would be against overthrowing a new government that hasn't had the history that Saddam did.

International opinion will never be satisfied when it comes to dealing with the  neo-barbarians of the middle east. International opinion, above all else, doesn't want  there to be effective international force. Even worse is the possibility that  the sole superpower will tell them to sod off and go about defending itself and policing  terrorist regimes as it sees fit.

Yeah, but there is a difference between reluctant acceptance of the sole superpower's actions and the widespread active sabotage that we could easily end up facing if we ignored International opinion utterly.

I tremble in fear at the thought of active opposition on the part of the international community <\sarc>.

These people I mentioned say, "Screw international opinion, what can they do?"  Well, maybe by about the third time the US knocked off a government because it didn't obey the US fast enough the rest of the world would start shifting alliances. Perhaps Europe would even start to militarize.

If Europe realigned and started militarizing right now it would take them two or more decades to catch up to where the United States is NOW. Nor does the EU have the economic power to catch and surpass should the United States notice and care enough to match the percentage of GDP the EUnics were spending.

Perhaps, but getting into a trade war with the rest of the world could destroy our economy even if we 'won'.

Yep, your original argument couldn't stand, so now you shift to economic "warfare" instead. We played that game with the Soviet Union. You do recall who won that one, don't you?

And if it came to a military confrontation, just what percentage of the US population would you have to inter in camps?

Of U.S. Citizens? None. Of foreign nationals resident here? Some, no doubt.

The US would be unable, politically, to declare war on the EU until the EU was already a major military rival. So the EU would have all the time in the world need to militarize. Heck, it would even be welcomed in some right-ward political quarters.

I don't think it would go that far. If it did, I've little doubt that an heir of William Randolph Hearst would seize the moment.

I don't want to live in a WMD armed country that engages in wars of aggression and that is what we would be if we followed that policy.

I'll gladly pay your one way ticket to the nation (outside of the Americas) of your choice, as long as you sign a renunciation of citizenship...

Hah. I would take the money and buy a sniper rifle, (+ lessons) long before I left. At that point, pieces of paper with my signature on them would be about as irrelevant as anything else. "From my Cold Dead Hands."

I said I'd pay for a ticket. I didn't feel the need to add that it would be non-refundable. And if your marksmanship is at the same level as your history, I'm far more concerned for the innocent folks around me than I am for my own safety. But again, I'd be very glad indeed to oblige your last sentiment in that paragraph.

Far better that than contribute to a Tacitean Peace.

I don't particularly want to "...build a desert and call it 'Peace.'" It remains one of the two viable options.

There are those who claim that the Iraqis have been indoctrinated into hating the US, and that it would be impossible to change them. Well, Japan was an even more alien culture, whose people hated, feared and despised our nation and our race, and we re-wrote their Constitution. Further, the Japanese had a stronger military tradition, had fanatic soldiers, and _still_ they were subdued.

Are you willing to occupy, and when necessary suppress/oppress Iraq for the next fifty years or more? That's what it took in the Philippines, and they are a far better template than Imperial Japan. How much American blood are you willing to spend in such an endeavor? Will YOU contract to send YOUR children to Baghdad as part of the occupation forces?

And you think it would be cheaper to keep Iraq in squalor and chaos while we seized their oil, perhaps diverting some funds to support the friendly drug-addicted warlords who kept the Iraqi people in-line?

In terms of American Blood? Yes. A Tacitean peace would be cheaper. But I'm willing to spend that blood price if the ends justify it.

Look, if you are going to occupy Iraq forever anyway, (or invade it every other year, which amounts to the same thing), why not try to build something we can be proud of instead of the Heart of Darkness?

You need to get a handle on what you are talking about. You demonstrate over and over again just how little you know of the history of occupation and pacification forces. Japan and Germany were anomalies in the historical record. Read up on the American occupation of the Philippines and the various insurrections during that time, and you'll start to have a clue.

Oh, but that might cost too much, some people say.

I'm less concerned with the treasure than the blood. Especially if we use their oil in place of our treasure. But if you think world opinion has its panties in a twist now, imagine the howls of rage when we actually occupy, pacify, and rebuild Iraq in the image of a western secular society.

And you believe that we would spend more blood occupying Iraq than turning it into a desert and periodically invading that desert?

Yes I do. And the history would seem to support my opinion. Especially when you consider that Iraq has land borders with other Islamic nations which may take exception to our westernization project. That is a near guarantee of Guerilla operations.

I say put so many ground troops into Iraq that they have no hope of resisting.  Enough troops to protect those Iraqis who want to give our ways a chance. Enough troops so we can someday, maybe 50 years from now, pull out of a garden, not a desert.

We don't have that many troops. Period. Full Stop. Dot. If you doubt me, ask Col Kratman.

Are YOU willing to spend the treasure to increase our overall uniformed strength by an order of magnitude? Most of that will be Army, but we'll need the forces to get them and their logistics there and back again, and to support them. That is just the beginning of the costs in treasure that YOUR little empire will incur.

How many other deserts will you have to make, once you make that our policy? When any fanatic resistance at all forces you to destroy a country, gain.

Again, not my preferred method. But if the policy were adopted, how often it would have to be implemented would largely be a factor of the learning curve of our enemies.

Well, get out of this country you cowardly vomitous piece of filth.

Yeah right, it might be cheaper to invade a country every two years or so, destroy its infrastructure and civil institutions and leave them to warlordism and the tender mercies of UN relief agencies.

It's always cheaper to destroy. An impoverished and fragmented nation is not a threat to us. That's just a fact of human nature repeated time and again  in history.

Perhaps. But if we are so stretched financially that all we can afford to do is destroy, then we will not last long as a power, either. You won't impress the barbarians long with a demonstration of power, because they will always look to a regime change. They will always think that a nation desperate enough to use brutal methods will collapse if its will ever wavers. Say with a change of administration.

Perhaps. The downside of the policy of a Tacitean Peace is that its threat must remain credible.

Whereas a nation that is strong and confident enough to build, well, it always has the club, so why try to change their policy?

Because such a challenge "Would injure my enemy and improve the standing of my Clan."

Why choose a policy that practically forces you to maintain power by military means lest it cost you your brutal reputation?

The only reason to do so is because it can be made to work. It is a viable, if malodorous, option.

Yeah, it is much cheaper to destroy than to build. To be feared rather than respected.

Respect is great. Fear is acceptable. The current situation is not acceptable.

We lose more by losing the respect of our _many_ friends than by losing the fear of a few deluded enemies.

Which friends are those? I would only count the English Speaking Mafia as our friends. We have other allies, and quite a few fellow travelers, but precious few friends.

Losing our self respect is even worse.

Does anyone besides me find this incredibly funny coming from the keyboard of the Sand Flea? Call folks whose position you disagree with "...cowardly vomitous piece[s] of filth." and then talk about self respect? Why not go for the perfect 10 score in hypocrisy and complain about the lack of civility while you're at it?

You Stalinist pieces of shit. Take your jingoistic fascism somewhere else you amoral armchair mass murderers.

Remarkable. Give Slick Willy a pass on all his debauchery, but lash out in [...]

Gee, a blow job vs tens of thousands of deaths by US weapons, and billions of dollars to do it. I just can't seem to get equal outrage over those two issues.

That's because YOU have a relative moral scale. Yours is just the inverse of Stalin's.

 [...] terms of morality against those who propose a historically effective means of removing a threat to the United States and its citizens. Thou hypocrite!

'Historically effective'? No, historically effective is occupying the country for 50+ years and installing a favorable government. That worked for the US.  Supplying Berlin by air bought us Europe as friends for decades.

Yes, historically effective. Carthage comes to mind. And where are those European friends you suggest we "bought" now?

Turning nations into deserts has not been 'historically effective' for the US.

It has never been tried by us. Yet.

Just one of your many problems is that while you treat Saddam as a fixed quantity in your calculations you postulate utterly unrealistic changes in the American public and American politicians.

Oh?

The American people would not support ruling by brutality. Not for long. And you could blame the liberal peace-weenies all you like for the failure of your policy, but it wouldn't change the fact that you endorse a policy that Historically America has been unable and unwilling to sustain.

When have we attempted such [a Tacitean Peace] before? As regards ruling by brutality, you seem to have missed what our government did and our public supported during our expansion westward. Or are you arguing that our treatment of the various barbarian tribes in North America was NOT brutal? 

So you can whine all you like about the moral weakness of the US that we can't repress other peoples when it is in our national interest to, (according to your assessment), but it is no more realistic than a plan that assume Saddam will roll over and play nice.

Do you get volume deals on straw men? Or is that just your favorite rhetorical crutch?

History is replete with the ugly wars between societies/empires and the barbarians which surrounded them. Those who have read and learned from those histories know two things:

1. For the societies/empires, victory is the ONLY option. Barbarians which are neither conquered and civilized nor destroyed will rise to try again.

Fine. So why start with the bizarre assumption that this particular Barbarian is uncivilizable? You have proposed conquering the Barbarian and spending no effort to civilize them, trusting our military to endlessly flatten them.

That is not my starting position nor my preferred policy.

I would think that the best result is civilizing the Barbarian.

Yes, it is. But as Kipling warned us on our last foray into empire, the cost is high and the return on investment is low.

2. Half measures don't work.

Barbarians only respect strength.

'Strength' does not equal brutality. The strength and commitment to occupy Iraq for the long term, do you think that barbarians would not respect that?

That is a Western Distinction and Definition of Strength. The barbarians don't speak that language and don't have the cultural referents. We might be able to teach them both the language and the culture, but fifty years is an optimistic estimate on the time required.

There is physical strength and moral strength. I think that a power that destroys a barbarian country because it fears its own moral weakness in the future demonstrates _less_ strength than a power that has confidence in its successors.

The barbarian would either be confused by your argument, or greatly amused. Either way, it would sway him not at all.

Compassion is for them a dirty word. Measured response is a position of weakness, as is negotiation. Reasoning with them from our perspective is like  reasoning with a wolf. It doesn't work. Enforcing the law of the pack on the wolf does. Domesticating subsequent generations works.

Bribing one group of thugs to attack another is also a position of weakness, as we learned at Tora Bora. If they believe that we need one group of thugs to patrol the streets because we are afraid to do it ourselves, that is a position of weakness.

The Romans used barbarian auxiliary units as adjuncts to their legions along the periphery of their empire. Nothing new there. And the barbarians they were arrayed against didn't find the auxiliary units nor the legions to be weak.

The reason we used such adjuncts during the recent unpleasantness in Afghanistan was not fear, it was a question of the best use of limited forces. During most of the fighting in Afghanistan we had a lot less than a brigade of troops on the ground. Which no doubt is a news flash to you...

Obsessing over everything that could be construed by barbarians as a sign of weakness is also a position of weakness.

If you're going to be effective when dealing with barbarians, you have to get inside their mind to some extent. Hell, you need to get inside the head of the other guy to prevail in most forms of conflict.

This should be a no-brainer, if you want the barbarian to adopt our values, you can't cater obsessively to their notion of what weakness is!

You can and must until you can bring them to heel.

 It's [empire] not pretty. It's not nice. It's not genteel. It's one of the only things which has a historical track record of success.

For extremely low values of 'success'. You would choose brutality because you can't be bothered to spend the effort to make civilizing a more attractive option.

Again, not MY preferred solution. But what price are YOU willing to pay to bring civilization to the barbarians?

No, I take it back, you aren't cowards, just fundamentally _lazy_. Too lazy to think up a way to rebuild the region into a form acceptable to the US but which preserves their traditions. Too _stupid_ to come up with something like what MacArthur did, in allowing the Japanese to keep their Emperor as a figurehead. And worse still, absolutely confident that their cowardice, lazyness and stupidity are justified, and that people who seek a better solution are misguided at best and unpatriotic at worst.

So where is YOUR solution? What do YOU propose? How will YOU solve this problem without offending your sensibilities?

I thought I already said. My solution would be to occupy Iraq with about as many troops as we occupied Japan with. Or to not invade at all if we believed that the US couldn't bear the cost, because brutality and hiring mercenaries isn't cheaper in the long run.

Iraq has long land borders with other Islamic nations. The threat of Guerilla activity using those nations as a safe haven is a complicating factor that MacArthur didn't have to deal with. I'm not sure exactly how many troops would be required to garrison and patrol an area under those circumstances, but I suspect it would exceed the active duty strength of the entire United States Army.

You need to get a grip on the real world costs and consequences of what you have proposed. A quick review of Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" and "Arithmetic on the Frontier" would be a good early stop, along with a question to Col Kratman regarding how many troops it would take to make a start of your program.

Once you do you may change your mind about either a Tacitean Peace or the viability of mercenaries. I certainly don't think YOU have the stones to carry through with what you are proposing. You can't even' stomach calling it by its true name...

I, for one, will pay attention to your rants on this matter when you contractually oblige your progeny to the occupation and  rebuilding you seem to espouse now. I strongly suspect you lack the stomach for anything but half measures.

Occupation and rebuilding are far preferable to a career of invasion and domination.

So commit your progeny to the project. I'd suggest you go yourself, but I'd not inflict such a burden on the occupation forces.

And I say you lack the stomach for anything but half measures. You would overthrow the government but balk at the cost of occupation. You would overthrow the government, but with unreliable thugs rather than US troops.

Where were you when I was proposing an Empire on the TR (the Good Roosevelt) model? Not paying attention, obviously. I have something you don't, and that's an appreciation of just how difficult and distasteful a task this will likely be. I fully expect that you and your ilk will be "fair weather imperialists" who will rapidly revert back to craven form when the brutal realities of what you have espoused make the evening news.

No, I only want to invade Iraq if there is the commitment to rewrite its society from top to bottom. All or nothing, not half-measures at all.

So you say, now. Having demonstrated an incredible degree of ignorance as to what such a policy will entail.

You should criticize me for taking an all-or-nothing approach, but not for espousing half-measures!

I criticize you as an armchair strategist who doesn't know his ass from his elbow in such matters. I criticize you for being an ignorant lout preaching from a soapbox on matters which you never felt a need to study. I criticize you for offering up the blood of your neighbors without offering to share the risk with your own precious body or that of your progeny.

I revile you as a parlor pink not worthy of a drop of any serviceman's blood.

I am one of those weird people who would oppose action in Iraq if it did _not_ require US ground troops, but support it if it did.

Because it's only the blood of those loutish soldiers who tend to be Republican anyhow. I, for one, value their lives (even those misguided soldiers who vote democrat) far above yours.

As I said above, I am probably misinterpreting some peoples' positions.  Certainly no _reasonable_ person would support that kind of morally execrable filth. Noone would so cheerfully destroy the moral reputation of the United States for some illusionary safety.

Wake up and smell the blood. Our oceans no longer serve as adequate barriers to the barbarians. You have claimed that making our enemies weak and fearful of us is distasteful to you. That leaves two choices, Empire and destruction. If you find Empire equally repugnant, then you are advocating our destruction at the hands of the barbarians.

I say again: I would support war with Iraq _if_ I felt that there was the commitment to do it _right_, and not let it slide into another savage Afghanistan.

Where were they born and raised.

Who cares what you "feel" when you ignore the lessons of history?

And those _fools_ who think that regions which fall into barbarism aren't a threat to us... Where the warlords and drug lords rule, terrorists will find recruits, havens, money and weapons.

How many of the September 11th terrorists were from Afghanistan? How many were from Columbia (the country, not the university)? How many were from the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority?

'From' by national origin or where they trained?

Where were they born and raised.

Areas of chaos draw adventurers from outside.  

Really?

Arafat was an Egyptian. Most of Al Qaeda were foreign adventurers in Afghanistan who would not have met within their own country. Areas of chaos draw those who _thrive_ in chaos, and promote chaos.

So Afghanistan is a recruiting area for terrorists, but not for _Afghani_ terrorists.

Without places like Afghanistan you just can't get large numbers of people who thrive in chaos all in one place where they can organize.

It became a safe haven and a training ground. It was neither the ideological nor the financial source of the terrorists.

The majority were from Saudi Arabia.

But would they have met each other if Afghanistan hadn't acted as a filter, a concentrator that got large numbers of Taliban and terrorist wannabees together?

That is the first good question I have seen you post in this thread. It must be that time of day...

Their funding came from Saudi Arabia and from Islamicists in developed or developing countries.

Do you really believe there is a rich pool of recruits in Afghanistan who could be successfully infiltrated into the United States to act as part of a terrorist cell or active operations unit? Do you really think there is enough disposable income in Afghanistan to fund a global terrorist infrastructure?

This reminds me of Jerry Pournelle's series Janisaries. There were a large number of white mercenaries in the employ of the CIA running around Africa, in the story. Does that mean that Africa is a source for white mercenaries? No.  Could there have been a significant number of white mercenaries without places like Africa where they would be employed? No.

I started to reply, but this is at best tangential, and perhaps a red herring...

Afghanistan made itself a target by being a safe harbor and base of operations.

At best, a howling wilderness could provide a safe haven. But only to the extent that we decline to treat such howling wilderness' as free fire zones.

Sound like Soviet policy in Afghanistan to me.

Nope. The Soviets forted up. Once they lost the mobility battle, they were in a downward spiral, much like the French in Vietnam.

Areas become 'safe areas' the instant the troops pull out. And you have stated that you won't occupy every hill and valley, so you will be pulling out a _lot_.

No, I haven't.

Or do you think Americans can be better at brutality, and more successful at it, than the Soviets?

There's brutality, and mindless brutality. The Soviets/Russians are historically inclined towards the latter. Some might say culturally inclined, but I have hopes that they will break that vicious cycle this time around.

If the law can't go there, then US armed troops would have to go there.

And your point would be?

So instead of occupying the territory and at least pretending to protect it you would advocate the US repeatedly invade it. So, the same level of commitment, only it is less likely to work, will look worse to the rest of the world, and will expose our troops to the same level of risk. Gee, win-win all around.

Not my first choice, but one of two approaches which can reduce or eliminate the threat.

So you aren't a fan of Leia Organa, :) "The more you tighten your grip, the more star system slip through your fingers."

I leave such military and political experts to your position.

Perhaps you think the Empire was insufficiently brutal in dealing with the Rebelion?

That's just a retelling of a really old line, to which the really old reply is "If violence isn't working, you aren't being violent enough." I personally draw the line at genocide, while noting that as the ultimate level of violence, it would likely be effective.

Choose one:
 
Create a desert and call it peace.

Ave George, Imperator.

Ave George, Imperator. [Hail George, Worthy to Command the Legions]

Class of 1987
Si vis pacem, paret bellum.

Your Host
"It's not the years, it's the mileage."

Less Peaceful than it appears
Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci taion