While the initial invasion of Afghanistan went remarkably smoothly (only about 2,000 US Special Forces troops were used), this was largely because much of the actual fighting was accomplished by the Afghans themselves (of the ‘Northern Alliance’) with US air cover/interdiction and close coordination/communication via the US SF troops.
Up until the past year, we have been essentially doing nothing but a ‘holding’ program in Afghanistan while the focus was on Iraq. This essentially was a combination of the old ‘fire-base’ concept from Vietnam (which didn’t work there either!), and very small-scale ‘search and destroy’ missions by special forces backed up by enormous airpower.
Just to be clear…. I do not view myself as a liberal, nor a conservative, nor a libertarian, and most certainly, not any sort of tea party fool. I am an Independent, but that label covers far too much ground to be suitably descriptive of anyone. Probably the best descriptor for me is ‘American Fundamentalist,’ [...]
