Wisdom for the day

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

Christmas

Taking the advise of my Queen I have not been blogging the last few days. Merry Christmas

Godsmack - Voodoo

Supply Lines

We need to do something about our supply lines going through Pakistan like defend them or make the Pakis do it. Supply traffic has been stopped going through the Khyber area which also saw 50+ Taliban killed in a drone strike last week.

There have been many ideas floated about changing our supply situation for our forces in Afghanistan. My first idea would be to cut off funding for Pakistan's army until they start supplying security for the convoys from the ship to the Afghan border or letting U.S./NATO troops guard them.

No end to the Fighting Season in Afghanistan

ISAF has said that there will be no rest for the Taliban and associated groups over the winter. The fighting in Helmand Province bears this out.
Helmand Province 10 USMC KIA
Logar 1 Army
Patika 1 MC
Ghazni 1 Army
Kandahar 6 Army this happened when an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on the soldiers
Wasit 1 Army
Balkh 2 Army.
This as a report by a British officer recently stated "we are killing them (Taliban) on and industrial level" was released.
This however does no good when there are 2 million plus Afghan refugees in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan that are being radicalized and used as the foot soldiers for the Taliban. What I have said over and over and will continue to say is there will be no peace in Afghanistan as long as the FATA is available to fall back to, recruit, train, and refit. Pakistan has no desire to do this and the U.S. is not effectively able unless we invade Pakistan which will not happen.

That leaves us at a stalemate one I fear no amount of COIN operations can fix.

Major Attack in Kabul

Picture from the AP

Taliban or associated terrorists attacked an army recruitment center and a bus load of officers driving to work. Both attacks included a combination of small arms attacks and suicide bombers which have been hallmarks of attacks on large facilities recently. What these groups do is use small arms cover to get the suicide bombers close to their targets then the bomber detonate then as reinforcements arrive and begin to overwhelm the attacks they detonate their belts or vests.

The Haqqani network has been responsible for a large number of the major attacks in Kabul and it would not be surprising to find out they were behind this one as well. The Haqqanis have been subject to an intense drone campaign the last three months in their strong hold around Miran Shah and Datta Khel in North Waziristan also ISAF forces have been making a push against Haqqani forces inside of Afghanistan. It would stand to reason they would push back hard. This attack may have been planned to coincide Chancellor Merkel's visit to the German troops stationed in Afghanistan.