A very good story by CBS no less on Marines in Helmand. In good news U.S. and British forces have killed 3200 Taliban in the last 90 days. To add to this it has been calculated that we would have to kill 10,000+ a year for 20 years just to break into their men coming of military age cycle. That is a bunch of killing on a scale that we probably have not done in the past nine years and as a country we probably do not have the attention span to do for ten more years.
If COIN is to work there has to be a bubble of non-fighting so the government can move in behind it even in the ink spot theory where we go and work in different areas. The Taliban and other forces have to be pushed back violently from the civilian population. This is something we have failed to do because we are undermanned not just because of a lack of U.S. troops but most of our NATO allies will not fight. We need "to kill them on an industrial scale" to give the Afghan government such as it is any chance at all.
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