Good question. They seem to be flattening all kinds of stuff at the same time we are getting very touchy about bombing much at all on the other side of the border. DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- Pakistani jets bombed militant targets in the main insurgent stronghold along the Afghan border Tuesday ahead of an expected ground offensive there, while the army killed 26 insurgents elsewhere in the northwest, authorities said....Bombing runs Tuesday destroyed around 15 houses in the Makeen, Ladha and Barwand regions of South Waziristan, a local intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief to the media..... The army says 80 percent of the militant attacks plaguing nuclear-armed Pakistan are planned from South Waziristan, while the United States says insurgent leaders blamed for spiraling violence in Afghanistan are also based in the lawless, remote area. The bad guys make the same claims that all those killed were peaceful villagers. He also said that the military's bombings in Waziristan in the past two days have not damaged Taliban sites but rather homes of innocent tribesmen. The Pakistani government has been involved in attempting to regain control of the tribal areas they ceded to the extremists for a while now. One of the main causes of the violence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan is that very cession of power. It allowed the Taliban to regroup in safety and they have since been on a tear, as I noted yesterday. For that to end those very safe havens must be rendered unsafe. The insurgents have complete control of large swaths of the countryside in the border/frontier areas and that is an untenable position for the Pakistanis, the Afghans and us. But why is it OK for these bombings to happen and we can't play the same game of "rubble doesn't make trouble"? Basically, because these areas are simply lousy w/ the enemy and until they are squashed, we will simply see more fighters recruited and trained there attacking targets in Pakistan and infiltrating into Afghanistan. Now it is often noted that there are places in Afghanistan that are pretty much Taliban controlled as well. That is true to some extent, but there are no places in A-Stan that are so thoroughly enemy territory as those on the far side of the border. In order to let a COIN strategy take root a certain amount of kinetic action is required to break the back of the insurgency. It happened in Iraq w/ the addition of the Surge brigades and a large increase in conventional and Counterterror (CT) raids and attacks. But it was paired with the clear, hold and build concept that left our forces in areas where we had rousted the bad guys from. If Gen. McChrystal gets the forces necessary to implement that strategy, there will be an initial pull back from some Taliban infested areas and a consolidation of security in population centers. Once that is done, the next step is to expand those ink spots and that will involve making some dead tangos. The main objective of securing the population will still be in play, but when necessary we will bring scunion down on especially nasty areas. There will be some parts of A-stan where we don't try to garrison and pacify them, where we simply decide to keep an eye on them and occasionally send a Hellfire through some scumbag's window "pour encourager les autres". But the idea is to win as many hearts and minds and the attendant support from the populace as possible. The solution for the tribal areas may end up with the same idea of occasional kinetic action to ensure no build ups can occur. That is what is happening there right now. The build up that happened after the 2004/6 treaties that Pakistan made with the extremists is being built down the old-fashioned way. Once that is done they (and we) will attempt to make friends or buy off anyone out there we can. But as I said some of these people just will not play nice and there will likely be a need for CT activity to manage their activities. We can't bomb our way to a manageable security level in Afghanistan, short of going Jenjis Khan and razing the countryside. Once the Pakistanis conduct their upcoming push to degrade the insurgents and their havens is an ideal time to use the winter slow down in activity to put a COIN strategy in play. Let's hope we take advantage.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/bJ1XDoRXi1w/pakistan-can-bomb-houses-why-cant-we.html
Posted
Oct 13 2009, 01:48 AM
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