Agreed.  I argued this from the beginning years ago. Kindness coupled with food, clothing, medical care, etc. goes a very long way.

Yes, the best thing for Sudan would be just that, a targeted airlift to the needy.

 

I believe the point you are missing here Steven is that this is exactly what the enemy was doing to convince unemployed young men to help them out prior to the surge.

We just kicked out the monetary advantage that AQIE had previous to that. Additionally I am not sure how putting more troops on the streets than before isn't a surge.

 

Less then, more now equals a surge in force. Unless you are trying to imply that using multiple tactics in concert somehow invalidates the main thrust of a military operation? I am not sure what school of thought that would come from though.

 

 

Not without the troops to keep armed thugs from stealing it the secon it hit the ground. This is exactly why the surge in troops on the street coupled with monetary incentives worked. not only did the locals have a reason to work with us, they didn't need to fear reprisal from the insurgents.

Airdrops of goods and food into areas that are already terrorized by violent men only serve to supply the violent men. You have to protect the people who actually need the stuff at the same time.

 

 

What you are missing is that along with the "surge" of troops, the Military adopted the new doctrine of Gen. Petraeus. We quite literally changed the way we used our troops in conflict, as dramatically as the British developing tanks because trench warfare wasn't working in WWI.

Rather than thinking in fronts of enemy activity, where we would move into a town or district of Baghdad and push out the insurgents, and then return to HQ, we began using an ambush and encirclement tactic.

We use diversionary tactics to get the insurgents to reveal their positions, surround those positions, and slowly move in, so that they must either surrender or die. If the insurgents attempt to withdraw from their locations, they run into our forces and die. The end result was instead of forcing the insurgents to retreat, we just outright killed them in very large numbers.

With the additional supply of troops, it became possible to surround multiple enemy strongholds without thinning our battle lines, and maintain our usual patrols.

Of course, you are right, in that we essentially bought off the tribesmen who were tired of being bombed by the insurgents to give us insurgent locations, but it is our use of new tactics that delivered a decisive blow to the insurgents and al-Qaeda that they have been unable to recover from...

Call whatever you want, surge, change of tactics, it worked, and Obama won't admit it. I guess both he and the Democratic congress will not be getting the US defeat they were so desperately hoping for, I'm getting teary eyed for them.

I suppose you're right:I'm guilty of not recognizing that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Still, the word suggests some dramatic assault which never happened; the fact is the 140,000 already there could have done the same thing had half not been dilly dallying in the green zone.

True, but it is an awful admission of incompetence of command for the first five years. Furthermore, it is axiomatic--until Vietnam, that is--that a foothold is not secure if it is not held for good.

140k could have, but didn't. 20k extra did, hence why they say the surge "worked".

Aye, as an old marine it's typical of: to get things done tell it to the Marines.

Always a glass half empty - the perpetual view of the left/liberals/[insert label here].

That is a given.